Datasets:

textminr

/

mn-ds

like 0

theepochtimes--2019-11-09--Federal Judge Denies Rights of Conscience to Health Care Providers

theepochtimes

Federal Judge Denies Rights of Conscience to Health Care Providers

A group of demonstrators display signs during a pro-life rally outside the Planned Parenthood Reproductive Health Center on June 4, 2019 in St Louis, Missouri. (Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images) An Obama-appointed federal judge in Manhattan struck down as unconstitutional a Trump administration rule preventing federally-funded health care providers from being forced to participate in abortions and other activities that violate their conscience. U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York, who joined the court in 2011 after being nominated by then-President Barack Obama, issued a 147-page opinion and order Nov. 6 invalidating the regulation published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The rule, which the judge wrote “purports to interpret and provide for the implementation of more than 30 statutory provisions that recognize the right of an individual or entity to abstain from participation in medical procedures, programs, services, or research activities on account of a religious or moral objection,” was to become effective July 22. During the course of the litigation HHS agreed to delay the effective date to Nov. 22. Now it may never take effect. The ruling came in three lawsuits brought by Planned Parenthood, New York State, and other state and local governments that were consolidated by the court. Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, described the court ruling as “absurd mush.” “The point of the First Amendment–especially the free exercise of religion–is to protect the conscience rights of Americans,” he said in a statement. “In this country, government doesn’t get to tell you that your faith is fine on Sunday at church but not Monday at work.” Lawyer Alexa Kolbi-Molinas of the American Civil Liberties Union praised the judicial order, characterizing it as protecting patients. “Everyone is entitled to their religious beliefs, but religious beliefs do not include a license to discriminate, to deny essential care, or to cause harm to others,” she said in a statement. The rule, unveiled in May by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at HHS, was created to protect “individuals and health care entities from discrimination on the basis of their exercise of conscience in HHS-funded programs,” and implements “full and robust enforcement of approximately 25 provisions passed by Congress protecting longstanding conscience rights in healthcare.” “Finally, laws prohibiting government funded discrimination against conscience and religious freedom will be enforced like every other civil rights law,” OCR Director Roger Severino said at the time. “This rule ensures that healthcare entities and professionals won’t be bullied out of the health care field because they decline to participate in actions that violate their conscience, including the taking of human life.” But in his ruling Judge Engelmayer didn’t need to reach religious freedom issues covered by the First Amendment or the abortion issue because he found other grounds to invalidate the HHS rule. The rule, the court found, “imposes ambiguous and retroactive conditions on the States,” which would be required to enforce its provisions because they accept health care funding from the federal government. “Once a State has accepted funds pursuant to a federal spending program, the Federal Government cannot alter the conditions attached to those funds so significantly as to “accomplish[ ] a shift in kind, not merely degree,” the judge wrote, quoting from the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius. The judge indicated he was striking down the entire rule instead of mere parts of it because it “was sufficiently shot through with glaring legal defects as to not justify a search for survivors.” In his opinion, Engelmayer also noted that protecting health care providers’ freedom of conscience would be expensive for the states. “HHS itself classifies the Rule as ‘economically significant,’ meaning it will have an annual economic effect of more than $100 million. … [and] will cost around $1 billion to implement … over its first five years, not including public health costs.” “The Rule also puts in jeopardy billions of dollars in federal health care funds,” the judge wrote matter-of-factly, without noting that providing financial incentives for compliance was the purpose of the rule. Planned Parenthood could be adversely affected, he wrote parenthetically, because “nearly” every one of its affiliates “participates in Medicaid, which garners hundreds of millions of dollars in reimbursement.” The HHS regulation came two years after President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13798 to protect Americans’ fundamental rights of conscience and religious liberty. EO 13798 states it “shall be the policy of the executive branch to vigorously enforce Federal law’s robust protections for religious freedom” because our “Founders envisioned a Nation in which religious voices and views were integral to a vibrant public square, and in which religious people and institutions were free to practice their faith without fear of discrimination or retaliation by the Federal Government.” President Trump later signed Executive Order 13831 which created a Faith and Opportunity Initiative in the White House. The order will “ensure that the faith-based and community organizations that form the bedrock of our society have strong advocates in the White House and throughout the Federal Government,” a White House press release stated at the time. The Epoch Times asked the Department of Justice if the administration planned to appeal the ruling but did not immediately receive a reply.

Matthew Vadum

https://www.theepochtimes.com/federal-judge-denies-rights-of-conscience-to-health-care-providers_3141637.html

Sat, 09 Nov 2019 01:32:47 +0000

health

healthcare policy

yahoonews--2019-06-17--McConnell on Jon Stewart I dont know why hes all bent out of shape over 911 victims fund

yahoonews

McConnell on Jon Stewart: 'I don't know why he's all bent out of shape' over 9/11 victims' fund

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday said he can’t understand why Jon Stewart is angry over the handling of health care funding for 9/11 victims. “We have never failed to address this issue, and we will address it again,” McConnell said on “Fox & Friends.” “I don’t know why he’s all bent out of shape.” Appearing at a hearing of a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee last week, Stewart made an impassioned plea for lawmakers to reauthorize the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which is set to expire next year amid mounting claims from first responders, construction workers and others involved in operations at Ground Zero up through May 30, 2002. For years afterward, and down to the present, many first responders have been diagnosed with cancer or other diseases related to exposure to toxic material at the site. The former “Daily Show” host berated those who failed to show up to the hearing. “Sick and dying, they brought themselves down here to speak — to no one,” Stewart said. “Shameful. It’s an embarrassment to the country, and it is a stain on this institution.” The subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has 14 members, but fewer than half were present in the room at various points during the emotional hearing. On “Fox & Friends,” McConnell said such absences are common in Congress. “That frequently happens because members have a lot of things going on at the same time,” the Kentucky Republican said, adding, “It sounds to me like he’s looking for some way to take offense.” A day after Stewart’s emotional appearance on Capitol Hill, the House panel voted unanimously to advance the 9/11 compensation bill. It now moves the House floor for a full vote. The same day, McConnell was asked about the status of the soon-to-lapse fund. “Gosh, we haven’t looked at that in a while,” the majority leader replied. “But we will look at it and I’m sure we’ll deal with it as compassionately as we have in the past.” Stewart blasted McConnell in an interview with “Fox News Sunday.” “I want to make it clear that this has never been dealt with compassionately by Sen. McConnell,” he said. “He has always held out until the very last minute and only then, under intense lobbying and public shaming has he even deigned to move on it.” Stewart said the community of 9/11 victims is “at the end of their rope.” “I think there’s a feeling of disbelief,” Stewart said. “They can’t understand why they have to continually saddle up and ride down to Washington and make these appeals for something that should be simple but is somehow, through politics, made agonizingly difficult.” He added: “If you were to take all the arrogance and entitlement and elitism that people don’t like about Hollywood and show business, and you concentrated it in one city, and gave those people actual power, that’s Washington.”

https://news.yahoo.com/mc-connell-on-jon-stewart-i-dont-why-hes-all-bent-out-of-shape-over-911-bill-152309818.html

2019-06-17 15:23:09+00:00

health

healthcare policy

yahoonews--2019-06-26--After fighting for 911 victims Jon Stewart turns to Wounded Warrior Games

yahoonews

After fighting for 9/11 victims, Jon Stewart turns to Wounded Warrior Games

Earlier this month Jon Stewart delivered powerful testimony on Capitol Hill, urging lawmakers to approve health care funding for 9/11 first responders and other victims of the attacks. Now the former host of “The Daily Show” is putting a spotlight on another deserving category: wounded service members. This week Stewart is serving as the host and MC of the 2019 Department of Defense Warrior Games in Tampa, Fla., where about 300 wounded, ill or injured active-duty and veteran athletes from the United States, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom are competing in 14 adaptive sports. The annual event, now in its 10th year, was established to help promote the recovery and rehabilitation of wounded military men and women and inspire others to do the same. “What you see here, all these folks that don’t allow their worst day to define them,” Stewart told Yahoo News, “it’s just incredible.” Stewart, who has hosted the games since 2016, said the camaraderie transcends the competition. “When you’re in the military, look, it’s a very small percentage of our society, so it’s already somewhat isolated,” he said. “Then you get hurt. Now you’re isolated from your unit, your platoon, your family. And now, all of a sudden, you find a community that’s experiencing the exact same thing.” Travis Dunn, a former U.S. Army Ranger, was shot in the upper torso during a six-hour firefight in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, on Dec. 2, 2014. The bullet traveled through his armpit, severed his spinal cord and left him paralyzed from the waist down. “I didn’t come to the realization of it, uh, until a couple months later, ’cause I was just on the pain medication,” Dunn said. “After I was done with all my rehab, that first probably couple months, I started to kinda realize that, you know, this was gonna be a forever thing. This was, this was how it was, this is how it was gonna be, you know, for the rest of my life.” The 29-year-old discovered the Warrior Games after moving to Tampa with his wife, Kelley. The couple have a 15-month-old daughter, Sadie. “I didn’t know what exactly I was gonna be capable of after my injury,” Dunn said. “It kinda opened my eyes that I can do a lot of things still.” Dunn, who competes in archery, track and wheelchair basketball, said the games bring out the competitive nature in each athlete. “We’re going out there, and dudes are just crushing each other,” he said. “Competition brings out the best in everybody. ’Cause nobody wants to lose. Everybody goes to win.” “It’s intense competition,” he said. “But the real value of it is the brother- and sisterhood that evolves from it. The connections that they make with other people.” For Stewart, his participation in the games is a no-brainer. “You have to demonstrate that if they’re there for us, we’re there for them,” he said. “No matter what.”

https://news.yahoo.com/jon-stewart-veteran-wounded-warrior-125500967.html

2019-06-26 12:55:01+00:00

health

healthcare policy

abcnews--2019-01-07--Supreme Court to decide if Fosamax users can sue Merck over bone fractures

abcnews

Supreme Court to decide if Fosamax users can sue Merck over bone fractures

Like millions of Americans suffering from bone loss, Lorice Cortez embraced the prescription drug Fosamax with the hope of stopping osteoporosis in its tracks. But in August 2009 -- a decade after she began regularly taking the medicine produced by pharmaceutical giant Merck -- Cortez said she experienced a painful and debilitating side effect: a spontaneous broken leg. As the 70-year-old turned to unlock the front door of her house, she heard a “popping sound, then suddenly felt her left leg give out from beneath her,” according to court documents. In an instant, with no trauma or impact, she completely fractured her thighbone, requiring surgery to repair the break. Monday the Supreme Court hears arguments in a case brought by Cortez and more than 500 Fosamax users from 45 states trying to sue Merck for damages after experiencing atypical femoral fractures, which they allege were caused by the drug. The plaintiffs contend the company failed to warn them or their doctors of the danger, despite early evidence suggesting the increased potential for spontaneous bone breaks without any previous stress. Merck does not dispute the heightened risk of femoral fractures in long-term users of Fosamax and has included a warning with prescriptions since 2010. But the company argues it cannot be held liable for damages in state courts because the Food and Drug Administration in 2009 rejected a proposed warning to patients. “If a manufacturer proposes to warn about a risk, discloses what it knows about that risk, and gets rebuffed by the FDA, failure-to-warn claims against it are preempted as a matter of law,” Merck argues in its brief filed with the high court. A federal district court and a circuit court of appeals divided on whether the FDA’s decision in 2009 preempts the patients’ claims or whether a jury must consider the facts of the case, weighing the FDA’s intent and whether Merck should have proposed different warning language. Cortez “would not have used Fosamax for so many years had [Merck] properly disclosed the risks associated with its long-term use,” her lawyers wrote in a suit against the company. Manufacturers are required by law to inform patients of potential adverse reactions to their drugs as soon as reasonable evidence exists. But the FDA has ultimate authority to approve or reject the wording that appears on drug labels. In a 2008 application to the FDA, Merck proposed revising the warning language for Fosamax, describing a heightened risk of “stress fractures.” One year later, the FDA rejected that draft language, saying the warning was “not warranted and is not adequately supported by the available literature” and asked for revised language. Merck said the FDA’s conclusion, based on available evidence at the time, means the company cannot be held liable for failing to warn consumers as required under state law because the federal government wouldn’t allow it. “Merck never proposed a warning of ‘atypical femoral fractures’ to the FDA,” the plaintiffs argue in their brief to the Supreme Court. “In an attempt to minimize the risk, Merck proposed to warn of ‘stress fractures,’ which are widely understood as minor fractures far less serious than atypical femoral fractures.” Currently, Fosamax carries a warning of “atypical femoral fractures” -- the type of injury Cortez and hundreds of others endured -- making no mention of the term “stress fractures.” The FDA mandated the change in 2010 after mounting evidence of a link to the drug. “The FDA was so concerned -- and had no response back from Merck -- that they convened their own panel to reexamine the evidence,” said Suzanne Robotti, founder and president of MedShadow Foundation, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. “It recommended that a strong warning be put on there specifically describing spontaneous fractures. It was Merck’s responsibility to propose that warning themselves.” The company maintains that there was insufficient evidence prior to 2010 to support a stronger warning for Fosamax. In an amicus brief filed to the Supreme Court, the Trump administration’s FDA backs up their claim. Merck has “incontrovertible proof, from the agency’s own mouth, that it would not have authorized respondents’ proposed warning until October 2010,” the company argues to the court. “If manufacturers must face tort suits, even when the FDA has made clear that no warning is necessary, they will continue to face an onslaught of troubling coercive litigation,” Merck says. Patient advocates say a jury should be allowed to decide. “If they are successful with this, other drug companies would obviously follow the exact same path: they would put in language to the FDA that they anticipate and hope would be rejected," said MedShadow's Robotti. "But it’s really not the FDA’s job to write the drug label, it’s the pharmaceutical company’s job to write the drug label." “It would be a disaster for patient rights, for patient protection,” Robotti said.

Devin Dwyer

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-decide-fosamax-users-sue-merck-bone/story?id=60160536

2019-01-07 09:30:15+00:00

health

healthcare policy

abcnews--2019-03-12--Is Trump coming after Medicare White House Dems both claim upper hand ANALYSIS

abcnews

Is Trump coming after Medicare? White House, Dems both claim upper hand: ANALYSIS

President Donald Trump has promised repeatedly to protect Medicare and Medicaid, the popular health care programs for older and low-income Americans, even tweeting last fall that “Democrats will destroy your Medicare and I will keep it healthy and well!” It was a promise that started in the early days of his presidential campaign. Then came this week’s 2020 White House budget request. That plan called for hundreds of billions of dollars to be trimmed from Medicare in the next 10 years, with estimates ranging from more than $500 billion to $845 billion depending upon the accounting. On Medicaid -- the federal health care program for low-income Americans -- Trump’s plan would shift more than $1 trillion in federal money to limited, state-run block grants that analysts warned wouldn’t keep pace with inflation. While both proposals were quickly pronounced dead-on-arrival in Congress, Democrats immediately tried to push the idea that only their party would protect health care for seniors and the poor. Trump's top health policy aide countered that reforms were necessary to keep Medicare solvent -- foretelling the debate to come in the 2020 elections. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested the president was more focused on "campaign applause" than substance. “The president’s budget doesn’t match the values of the American people,” added Rep. G.K. Butterfield, a North Carolina Democrat. Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Tuesday tried to assure lawmakers seniors wouldn’t be directly affected. He noted the budget would find savings by reforming how Medicare pays providers like hospitals and argued the plan would extend the solvency of the program. “On Medicare, we’re actually putting it on a sounder footing for the future,” Azar told the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “Hospitals are gobbling up doctors’ practices and jacking up the rates,” he added. Rodney Whitlock, a longtime Republican staffer on Capitol Hill, said that in recent years administration budgets -– and Congress’ response to them -– have become mostly partisan affairs rather than a starting point in real negotiations. Medicare, in particular, he said, is a favorite topic because so many Americans support it. The program, which provides health insurance to some 60 million seniors and people with disabilities, represents some 15 percent of the federal budget. “Rhetoric around Medicare goes from zero to 60 in microseconds,” said Whitlock, now a health care lobbyist with McDermott+Consulting in Washington. Tricia Neuman, senior vice president and director of the program on Medicare policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said whether the administration’s proposal can hurt or help seniors in the long run is a much bigger issue that would have to take into account a number of factors. And it probably would impact different groups of people in different ways, such as capping drug prices for some but not others, she said. Also, what qualifies as “waste” in any federal program often is in the eye of the beholder, she noted. “This begs the longer term question of how to finance care for an aging population,” Neuman said. “The country hasn’t really engaged in a serious discussion” on that.

Anne Flaherty

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-coming-medicare-house-democrats-press-trumps-top/story?id=61627546

2019-03-12 20:42:52+00:00

health

healthcare policy

abcnews--2019-12-23--U.S. allows Utah to expand Medicaid with work requirement

abcnews

U.S. allows Utah to expand Medicaid with work requirement

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Trump administration said Monday it will allow Medicaid expansion with a work requirement in Utah, a decision that came despite courts taking a dim view of the requirement in other states. Republican lawmakers contend that work requirements make people healthier and more financially stable, but critics say the mandate jeopardizes healthcare for the poor and adds another hurdle for people with childcare and other responsibilities. The announcement means the state will have full Medicaid expansion under former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, covering a total of up to 120,000 adults starting Jan. 1. Though Utah voters passed Medicaid expansion more than a year ago, conservative lawmakers have delayed its full implementation, saying it was too expensive. Health care advocates said they were glad more people will be eligible but wary about the work requirements they say could cause 7,500 people to lose coverage. “The work reporting requirements are unnecessary and do nothing to promote health,” said Matt Slonaker, executive firector at Utah Health Policy Project. The Trump administration has generally taken a favorable view toward work requirements and allowed South Carolina to impose them earlier this month. Nearly 20 states have asked to implement them, though a number have backed away amid court challenges. A federal judge blocked the requirements in Arkansas and Kentucky in March, finding the measures undermined the program’s mission of providing healthcare for the needy. Work requirement programs have also been suspended or dropped in states such as Arizona, Indiana and New Hampshire. In Utah, officials argue their “self-sufficiency" requirement is different because it's based on efforts to look for work rather than work a certain number of hours, said Nate Checketts, deputy director at the Utah Department of Health. It also includes exceptions for many people, including those who are 60 or older, pregnant or caring for young children. As many as 80% of people who qualify for Medicaid could be exempt from the work requirement, Checketts said. People who are subject to the requirement will need to complete an online job assessment, web-based training programs and 48 job searches within the first three months of being eligible for Medicaid. Utah voters passed full Medicaid expansion last year, but the GOP-dominated Legislature said it would be too expensive and initially voted to scale back the number of people covered. Republican Gov. Gary Herbert applauded the federal decision, saying Monday that it shows “states can craft viable, unique solutions to deliver critical health care services to their residents.” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services called Utah's plan an “innovative and sustainable” solution. The U.S. government is also considering other requests by Utah officials, including premiums and surcharges for people over 100 percent of the federal poverty level and penalties for intentional program violations.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-utah-expand-medicaid-work-requirement-67900579

Mon, 23 Dec 2019 18:24:18 -0500

health

healthcare policy

bbc--2019-07-20--Why do Americans pay so much for prescription drugs

bbc

Why do Americans pay so much for prescription drugs?

President Donald Trump said that prescription drug prices dropped for the first time in half a century in the US last year. Since taking office, the president has made repeated attacks against those who set drug prices and has pledged to take radical steps to reduce them. Mr Trump appears to be referring to the Bureau of Labour Statistics Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the increase in the cost of household items in the US. In the year to May 2019, the average monthly cost of prescription drugs fell by 0.2%. This is the first price decrease over a 12-month period since 1973, some 47 years ago - so by this measure, his assertion is broadly correct. However, this is not the most reliable way to measure drug prices according to Inma Hernandez, a pharmacy lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh. "The CPI is based on a basket of drugs which is representative of popular drugs. So it tends to include widely-used drugs, which are usually cheaper," she says. "However, it is less likely to include newer or less-prescribed drugs, which are more expensive and have higher price increases." Additionally, this basket of goods is based on the price that pharmaceutical companies say they are going to charge for products, or "list prices". In the US, individuals are encouraged to get health insurance plans because very few people have access to free healthcare. These "list prices" are then negotiated down by insurers as an incentive to offer the drugs to patients. So, even if the list price goes down, it is not known whether the actual price paid by insurers has decreased with it. This affects patients because in the US, health plans contribute to some of the costs of the drugs they cover, although they will also have to make some out-of-pocket payments. In theory, if insurers are paying less for their drugs, these savings will trickle down to those on health plans and reduce these out-of-pocket or insurance payments. Given a general lack of transparency on drug price negotiations, it is very difficult to assess this aspect of medicine costs. Some companies, including Pfizer, Bayer and Allergen, publically committed to lowering or freezing costs last year. This was after a series of comments made by Mr Trump. "He thinks because he has made a lot of noise, it has prevented drug prices from increasing. It is not clear whether that is the case or not," says Ms Hernandez. However, an Associated Press analysis of drug list prices found that for every drug which reduced in price in the first half of last year, 96 increased. The investigation did note that the increases "were not quite as steep as in past years". According to a report by the OECD group of industrialised nations, the USA spends roughly twice the average amount spent by other member countries on pharmaceuticals per head. For example, where the UK paid £398 ($497) per head in 2015, the USA paid $1,162. This is despite having similar prescription drug usage. "One reason the UK pays less is because the government will say no to new drugs which don't offer much better value," says Prof Michelle Mello, a health policy specialist at the Stanford Law School. "We don't have a government that buys drugs in the US, except in a few cases," says Prof Mello. Instead, insurers use middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers - or PBMs - to negotiate prices on their behalf. Because they are generally larger than individual health insurers, they are seen to have more purchasing power. But the Trump administration has criticised them in the past for not passing on enough savings to consumers. In England and Wales, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence represents almost all patients, so the drug companies have to lower their prices to access the market. In Scotland, the Scottish Medicine Consortium performs the same role. The Trump administration is exploring a number of policies either through ad hoc announcements or through an initiative launched last year called American Patients First. These policies are generally aimed at decreasing prices for government health plans such as Medicare, the insurance policy used by almost 60 million elderly and disabled Americans. One plan to force drug companies to reveal the cost of drugs in television adverts was recently blocked by a judge. "The big blueprint the White House put out had a fleet of policy ideas which were evidence-based. However, not many of them have crept in," says Prof Mello, citing the difficulty in passing legislation in a divided and clogged Congress.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48929882

2019-07-20 23:25:42+00:00

health

healthcare policy

bbcuk--2019-11-08--General Election 2019: SNP to launch campaign with 'NHS Protection Bill'

bbcuk

General Election 2019: SNP to launch campaign with 'NHS Protection Bill'

The SNP is to launch its election campaign by promising to bring forward legislation to protect the NHS from privatisation and future trade deals. The NHS Protection Bill would block any UK government from using the NHS as a "bargaining chip" in trade talks. If passed it would also give devolved parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland a veto on these deals. SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the NHS should not be for sale "at any price". The UK government has insisted the NHS is "not on the table" for trade talks and is not in any way "up for sale". The health services has been a key topic in the early days of the election campaign, with Labour also claiming they could be vulnerable to privatisation. • Election 2019: Could the NHS be 'up for sale'? • Reality Check: Could US companies run NHS services after Brexit? • 11 charts on why the NHS matters in this election The UK's political parties are setting out their platforms ahead of the snap general election on December 12. Nicola Sturgeon has pledged to put opposition to Brexit and backing for a new independence referendum "at the heart" of the SNP's election bid. However, she is also set to prioritise health services at her campaign launch event in Edinburgh, with a manifesto commitment to bring forward an NHS Protection Bill at Westminster. The party said the legislation "would explicitly prevent any future UK government from signing up to any agreement that made the NHS, in any part of the UK, a bargaining chip of any kind in any future trade deals". It would also require the "explicit approval" of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parliaments before any new trade deal could be signed, so they could agree that there was "no negative impact" on the NHS or the price of medications in their countries. Ms Sturgeon said Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been "very clear about his desire for a post-Brexit trade deal with Donald Trump", and said this could pose a threat to the health service. She said: "The NHS in Scotland is run in Scotland, for Scotland and under the SNP it will always be in public hands. Our NHS is not for sale at any price. "And while the Scottish Parliament has control of health policy, we cannot currently stop Westminster signing away that protection in a trade deal, or entering agreements that dramatically push up drug prices or risk our public services, including the NHS. "So in order to deal with the immediate threat from the Tories' post-Brexit plans, the SNP will bring forward a bill that would protect the NHS across the whole of the UK from ever being harmed by a Tory-Trump trade deal." Labour has claimed a Conservative trade deal with the US after Brexit could cost the NHS £500m a week by driving up the price of medicines. Leader Jeremy Corbyn said this money "could be taken out of the NHS and handed to big drugs companies" after US trade negotiators said they would want "full market access" for US pharmaceuticals. When US President Donald Trump visited the UK in June, he said the NHS would form part of negotiations over a possible future trade deal between the UK and US. The next day, he rowed back from those remarks. Mr Johnson has been joined by his Health Secretary Matt Hancock and International Trade Secretary Liz Truss in insisting that the NHS is "off the table" in trade talks with the US post-Brexit. The Conservative leader has pledged to bring forward the "biggest programme of NHS investment in a generation" and upgrades for hospitals. In a visit to Scotland on Thursday he also hit out at Ms Sturgeon's goal of holding a new independence vote in 2020, saying the Tories would "prevent another referendum". He added: "We are the party that is saying come on, let's get together as a whole UK, let's get Brexit done, get this thing over the line and then get on with bringing our great country together and unleashing the potential of the whole UK." Meanwhile Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson is also set to campaign in Scotland on Friday with a visit to Fife. She promoted her party as "the home of Remain" and also backers of the UK, saying: "The four nations of the United Kingdom are stronger when they work together, so we should work together to stop Brexit."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-50332391

Fri, 08 Nov 2019 01:09:18 GMT

health

healthcare policy

abcnews--2019-01-03--Government shutdown delays immigration hearings as an already historic backlog grows

abcnews

Government shutdown delays immigration hearings as an already historic backlog grows

The federal government shutdown has led to the closure of a number of U.S. immigration courts handling cases for tens of thousands of people whose status is in limbo – another twist in the protracted showdown between President Donald Trump and Democrats over border wall funding. The closures, which impact people whose immigration status is uncertain in dozens of courts across the country, has led to cases being indefinitely delayed and has further added to the already record-setting backlogs and years-long wait times, immigration legal experts told ABC News. Immigration judges already face a heavy burden dealing with the current caseload, said Amiena Khan, an immigration judge who serves as vice president at the National Association of Immigration Judges. "It is extremely frustrating," Khan said. "There is a tremendous amount of irony to all of this. As the government is shut down for this process to ensure greater border security, look at what it's doing to our system as a whole." Though immigration courts, which operate under the Department of Justice, continues to handle cases for detained migrants, the majority of people who face pending deportation proceedings are not detained. The clients of immigration lawyer Jeremy McKinney may have to wait a full year before the court can even set a later date for a judge to assess the case, McKinney said. Two of his clients, who were supposed to appear Wednesday, had their court dates canceled. “You have to give this court system proper resources and proper integrity for it to do its job,” McKinney said. President Trump has pushed Democrats to vote for more border security, using the government shutdown as leverage for funding. He told reporters in the White House on Wednesday that he’ll keep the government closed, “as long as it takes.” However, the case delays pose a further challenge to the Trump administration's efforts to expedite deportation processes and crackdown on illegal immigration. In the past year, the backlog of immigration court cases has surpassed one million, according to Department of Justice data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. “For immigrants with legitimate claims for certain types of immigration relief delays launch them further into a vulnerable limbo with no legal status,” said Sarah Piece, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. The delays could put families of asylum applicants at risk as they wait in the applicant's home country, potentially facing violent conditions that would qualify them for refuge in the U.S., immigration experts say. Even if the courts reopened tomorrow, cases with dates that took place during the shutdown would have to be rescheduled – potentially months later – since immigration judges have their calendars booked far in advance. The extra time to establish family roots by getting married or waiting for case law to be decided in federal court could offer more options for avoiding removal, according to legal experts. “When it comes to victims of domestic violence and gang-based crime the law has been thrown into turmoil … having a delay of game for those individuals, that’s not bad news,” McKinnley told ABC News. And for some immigrants with weak legal cases, the delay buys time in the US before they are deported. One possible solution to helping relieve the backlog is a fundamental restructuring of how such courts are funded and resourced, Khan said. This method would include removing courts from the executive branch where they are currently under the purview of the Department of Justice and creating a system where the courts function and are funded more independently. "Immigration courts have been starved of resources for so long because we are so low on the totem pole with regard to appropriate funding," she said.

Quinn Owen

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/government-shutdown-delays-immigration-hearings-historic-backlog-grows/story?id=60119986

2019-01-03 19:56:20+00:00

society

immigration

abcnews--2019-01-11--Canada wants 1 million more immigrants over next 3 years

abcnews

Canada wants 1 million more immigrants over next 3 years

Canada, a nation of not quite 37 million people, wants to add more than 1 million immigrants through 2021. "Thanks in great part to the newcomers we have welcomed throughout our history, Canada has developed into the strong and vibrant country we all enjoy," Ahmed Hussen, minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, wrote in an annual report to Parliament. "Immigrants and their descendants have made immeasurable contributions to Canada, and our future success depends on continuing to ensure they are welcomed and well-integrated." Hussen, now in his early 40s, fled to Canada from war-torn Somalia when he was 16. A year ago, Donald Trump, the president of the United States of America, said he didn't want the U.S. accepting immigrants from Haiti or countries in Africa or similar "s---hole countries." "My experience is not unique," Hussen told The New York Times in 2017. "Canada receives a lot of refugees every year." For Canada to add 1 million immigrants over the next three years, the nation would need to welcome approximately 350,000 -- roughly 1 percent of its current population -- in each of 2019, 2020 and 2021. "Canada is a world leader in managed migration with an immigration program based on non-discriminatory principles, where foreign nationals are assessed without regard to race, nationality, ethnic origin, colour, religion or gender," Hussen wrote in his report. About 1 in 5 current Canadians are immigrants, according to the report, with more than 6 million arriving since 1990. About 13.7 percent of the U.S. population, roughly 1 in 7, in 2017 was foreign born, according to U.S. Census estimates. In 2016, that figure was 13.5 percent.

Justin Doom

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/canada-million-immigrants-years/story?id=60306973

2019-01-11 13:04:39+00:00

society

immigration

abcnews--2019-01-14--Immigration court backlogs compound as shutdown enters fourth week

abcnews

Immigration court backlogs compound as shutdown enters fourth week

Dozens of immigration courts remain shuttered across the country this week and tens of thousands of hearings were canceled because of the ongoing government shutdown, a situation that is likely to add hundreds of cases to an already crushing backlog, according to analysts. It's an ironic twist in President Donald Trump's desire to secure the U.S.-Mexico border by building a $5 billion wall and send people through established ports of entry. Democrats say they would support additional border security but have balked at wall construction, resulting in a 24-day government shutdown without any end in sight. The number of asylum and other immigration-related cases facing U.S. judges has skyrocketed in the past two decades, creating a backlog of more than 800,000 active cases before the shutdown began, according to data compiled by Syracuse University, based on Justice Department records. Syracuse University estimated on Monday that nearly 43,000 immigration court hearings on a variety of matters, including evidence examination and basic scheduling, have been canceled. As many as 100,000 people could be impacted if the shutdown continues through the end of the month. Aaron Reichlin Melnick, a policy analyst with the American Immigration Council, said that he estimates for every day the shutdown continues, another 500 immigration court cases that would have been completed are compounding the backlog. “The stress on the immigration court system will only increase as backlogs continue to skyrocket due to the shutdown," Reichlin-Melnick told ABC News. The estimates are based on the average number of court matters typically completed when the government is not shutdown. After the shutdown began last month, court proceedings stopped for anyone who was not detained by U.S. authorities. Cases for detained immigrants were allowed to continue under the Justice Department’s shutdown plan. Many people, particularly those traveling with children, would not necessarily be detained for long periods of time unless there was evidence of other criminal activity. The shutdown also creates a paperwork backlog, as courts for non-detained cases are not open to receive key documents from lawyers. That includes case documents to help asylum applicants prove their right to stay in the U.S. In addition to the impact on cases, the judges who were scheduled to hear cases are feeling the strain of growing uncertainty and not getting a paycheck. Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor, President of the National Association of Immigration Judges is worried about the financial hardship for hundreds of her colleagues working without pay. “The ticking time bomb is the impact [on judges],” Tabaddor said. “It is going to have a big impact personally on the judges’ financial standing and ability to be able to support their families.” For many immigration judges, the decision to enter public service is already a sacrifice, Tabaddor said. They typically carry academic credentials that could give them the opportunity for much higher paychecks in the private sector. “At some point maybe some of the judges will say, ‘this isn’t what I signed up for.’” Financial problems are a common cause for the government to deny security clearances. Judges could face difficulty in passing their ongoing background screenings which aim to ensure they’re not at risk of defaulting on debt. “I hope we do not get there,” she said. “I hope the shutdown is resolved soon and quickly.”

Quinn Owen

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/immigration-court-backlogs-compound-shutdown-enters-fourth-week/story?id=60232074

2019-01-14 21:47:33+00:00

society

immigration

abcnews--2019-01-15--Fact Check Trumps claims on illegal immigrant crime Heres what the numbers show

abcnews

Fact Check: Trump's claims on illegal immigrant crime. Here's what the numbers show

President Donald Trump, speaking in New Orleans on Monday, listed tens of thousands of crimes he said were committed by undocumented immigrants, part of a pattern of statements he’s made linking immigrants to crime in his effort to gain support for his proposed border wall. It echoed his prime-time address last Tuesday in which he used the same numbers. There is no national database that compares crimes committed by immigration status. In fact, only one state – Texas – does so. That means there’s no national database that breaks down crimes committed by native-born citizens or immigrants, or those in the country illegally, making it difficult to confirm or dispute the president’s numbers. What available studies do show, however, is that overall, crime rates are lower among immigrant groups than they are among native-born Americans. The broader context: crime rates among immigrants are lower Walter Ewing, an editor and writer for the American Immigration Council, a group that advocates for immigrants, puts it this way: “You can find any demographic group that you like and it’s going to include murderers. You can look at redheads and blondes and it’s going to include murders. But that’s not the point, the point is what the crime rates are,” he said. Comparing overall crime rates for different groups is the best way to determine if a particular group poses a significantly greater threat than others. “And if the likelihood is low, particularly compared to natives, then it’s disingenuous to claim they’re going to be a threat,” Ewing added. Alex Nowrasteh, a senior immigration policy analyst with the libertarian Cato Institute, points to Texas as an example, since it’s the state with the best data on crimes committed and counted by immigration status and was the subject of a recent report he wrote showing that criminal conviction and arrest rates for immigrants were "well below" those of native-born Americans. Undocumented immigrants make up just over 6 percent of the state's population, legal immigrants made up over 10 percent, and native-born Americans make up over 80 percent, according to the most recent American Community Survey data and the Center for Migration Studies. Meanwhile, undocumented immigrants were convicted of 5.9 percent of all the homicides in Texas, legal immigrants were convicted of 3.8 percent of homicides, and native-born Americans were convicted of about 90 percent of all the homicides in Texas, according an analysis of 2015 Texas state data by Nowrasteh. In other words, native-born Americans were the only group over-represented among those convicted of homicide in the state. The president has also pointed to Texas, citing -- mostly accurately -- numbers from the Department of Safety in a tweet over the weekend: “In the Great State of Texas, between 2011 & 2018, there were a total of 292,000 crimes by illegal aliens, 539 murders, 32,000 assaults, 3,426 sexual assaults and 3,000 weapons charges. Democrats come back!” But the context is important here, too. Trump doesn’t include a comparison to the general population’s crime rates, and the numbers Trump cited are arrests, meaning all did not result in convictions. Of those charges over eight years, 238 undocumented immigrants were convicted of homicide, 13,559 for assault, 1,689 for sexual assault and 1,280 for weapons. And that all, in the end, frames a bigger picture: illegal immigrants are about half as likely to be incarcerated as native-born Americans and legal immigrants are about 80 percent less likely than native-born Americans, according to Nowrasteh’s research for the Cato Institute. But where are the president’s nationwide numbers on crime committed by those in the country illegally coming from? Though the White House did not specify, the president is likely gleaning numbers from data released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that summarizes arrests of immigrants who are released into their custody and then removed from the country. But the information Trump appears to be using does not make clear what year the arrests were made, when the crimes were actually committed, and combines charges with convictions. According to the data, serious drug and DUI offenses represent the largest group of convictions, followed by immigration and traffic offenses. The 266,000 arrests of illegal immigrants with criminal records over the past two years that Trump mentioned is a number that mainly includes immigrants who were convicted of crimes in the past, and perhaps served jail time before they were released into ICE custody. As Nowrasteh puts it, “this is just when ICE gets them. It isn’t when convictions happened.” According to the ICE data, over the past two years, there were nearly 4,000 arrests made for people charged and convicted of homicide among immigrants released into ICE custody for deportation — but the homicides could’ve been committed over any number of years. For comparison, just in 2017, a total of 16,446 people were murdered in the U.S., according to the FBI. The same unclear time frame applies to the president’s number on assaults, which likely stems from the nearly 50,000 people released into ICE custody in 2017 and 2018, who had been either charged or convicted for such crimes—but who could have committed their crimes years ago. As for the president’s statement on sex crimes, those same ICE reports do not show 30,000. Even when combining the number from the ICE reports on sexual assaults with the separate category of sex offenses, that total comes to around 22,000.

Cheyenne Haslett

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fact-check-trumps-claims-illegal-immigrant-crime-rates/story?id=60311860

2019-01-15 21:38:21+00:00

society

immigration

abcnews--2019-01-26--12 immigrant workers at Trump golf course fired lawyer says

abcnews

12 immigrant workers at Trump golf course fired, lawyer says

A dozen immigrant workers at one of President Donald Trump's golf clubs in New York who are in the U.S. illegally were fired this month even though managers had known about their legal status for years, a lawyer for the workers said Saturday. As the president railed during the partial government shutdown against immigrants coming into the country illegally, a manager at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County called a dozen immigrant workers into a room one by one Jan. 18 and fired them, said lawyer Anibal Romero. Many of them had worked at the club for a dozen or more years, he said, and managers knew they had submitted phony documents but looked the other way. "This is bogus. People have been there for 12, 13, 14 years," said Romero. He added, referring to one of the president's sons, "One had the keys to Eric Trump's bedroom." The firings come after workers at another Trump club in New Jersey came forward last month to say managers there had hired them knowing they were in the country illegally, and had even helped one obtain phony documents. The crackdown at the New York club was first reported by The Washington Post. The Associated Press left messages with The Trump Organization seeking comment. Eric Trump depicted the firings to the Post as a normal course of business. "We are making a broad effort to identify any employee who has given false and fraudulent documents to unlawfully gain employment," he said. "Where identified, any individual will be terminated immediately." He added that the "the system is broken." Trump has repeatedly cast the millions of immigrants in the country illegally as a scourge on the health of the economy, taking jobs from American citizens. He has said they also bring drugs and crime over the border. Trump turned over day-to-day management of his business to Eric and his other adult son, Donald Jr., when he took the oath of office two years ago. The Trump Organization owns or manages 17 golf clubs around the world. One man who was fired, a former maintenance worker from Mexico hired in 2005, told The Post that he started to cry when he was told of the news and pleaded with management to reconsider. "I told them they needed to consider us," said Gabriel Sedano. "I'd given the best of myself to this job." "I'd never done anything wrong, only work and work," he added. "They said they didn't have any comments to make." Romero, who also represents immigrant workers at Trump's golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, said he has called New York state authorities and the FBI to look into hiring practices at the New York club. "There was a don't ask, don't tell attitude at the club," he said. "We are demanding a full investigation."

Bernard Condon, Associated Press

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/12-immigrant-workers-trump-golf-fired-lawyer-60649746

2019-01-26 23:51:18+00:00

society

immigration

abcnews--2019-03-12--Heres how Trump wants to fund an illegal immigration crackdown

abcnews

Here's how Trump wants to fund an illegal immigration crackdown

President Donald Trump’s latest budget is packed with ways the administration wants to curb illegal immigration in the U.S. beyond just the $8.6 billion for his much-desired border wall. Across the federal government, the White House plan calls for an all-hands-on-deck approach from increasing the number of officers who can detain and deport illegal immigrants, to proposing to punish the “sanctuary cities” that protect them. While the proposal has almost no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled House, it outlines the administration's priorities for the year and suggests immigration will remain Trump's focal point for the year. "All who are privileged to hold elected office must work together to create an immigration system that promotes wage growth and economic opportunity while preventing drugs, terrorism, and crime from entering the United States," the budget plan states. "Immigration policy, like all policy, must serve the interests of Americans living here today—including the millions of new Americans who came here legally to join our national family." On top of $8.6 billion more for a wall, the White House budget proposal would fund 5,000 new Border Patrol Agents and allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to add 10,000 officers and investigators while expanding detention centers, according to the White House budget office. The budget also would replace military construction funds that would be depleted by the border wall after Trump declared a national emergency. When Trump first took office, ICE facilities held an average of 34,376 people on any given day. Last week that number topped 50,000 and the new proposed budget would allow for further increases. Democrats fought detention center expansions in negotiations that ended the government shutdown earlier this year. Although they did not stop ICE transferring funds from elsewhere in the agency to expand the number of beds in their facilities, according to the Migration Policy Institute. As the number of detainees continues to climb, immigration judges face a record backlog of cases. Trump’s new proposal increases Justice Department funding to grow the number of immigration judges by nearly 20 percent, the budget office says. National Park officers are also expected to crack down on illegal crossings through federal land near the border. "We are going to be working ever more intensely with our friends in CBP and the law enforcement agencies to interdict drug smuggling along the border," Scott Cameron, a top Interior Department official, said on a call with reporters. The Interior Department has more than 4,000 federal law enforcement officers and has been increasingly focused on deploying those resources to the border. The budget also includes proposals aimed at “sanctuary cities.” The measures would allow the administration to withhold funding from cities that don’t “cooperate with specific federal immigration enforcement activities and requests.” The Trump administration’s efforts to crack down these jurisdictions have been stopped by appellate courts multiple times. In resistance to Trump’s plan, advocates joined Democrats on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to introduce new legislation that would protect young immigrants known as "Dreamers" and refugees. These immigrants "make our communities stronger — it’s time we gave them stability, REAL protection under the law, and a pathway toward citizenship," tweeted Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif.

Quinn Owen

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-fund-illegal-immigration-crackdown/story?id=61627874

2019-03-12 18:20:36+00:00

society

immigration

abcnews--2019-11-01--In California blaze, Spanish-speaking immigrants find help

abcnews

In California blaze, Spanish-speaking immigrants find help

Two years ago, when fires ravaged Northern California, where tens of thousands of Latinos in the U.S. illegally work at farms and vineyards, displaced families were seen sleeping on beaches or in their cars. Farmworkers, construction workers and others in the service industry stayed away from evacuation centers for fear that immigration authorities would use the crisis as an opportunity to detain and deport people. As another massive fire burns the same area this week, it's been a very different story, according to immigrants and community groups that work closely with them. Translators and aid workers have been at evacuation centers, interviewing families and scouting out items they need, such as baby formula, diapers or medication. Groups are raising funds and distributing cash for those out of work. Local governments and California fire officials have increased bilingual outreach, posting social media updates in both languages. They also have told people that Immigration and Customs Enforcement won't have access to any shelters, trying to allay fears of an immigration raid. "It was great because all these people were comfortable coming to these evacuation centers and it was something good to see," said Cal Fire spokesman Edwin Zuniga, who is bilingual and has been leading Spanish-language press conferences. "It made me feel good that these people felt safe and it made me feel good that I was able to give them this information in Spanish and reach out to them." The fire burning in Sonoma County has forced over 180,000 to evacuate, has burned 167 homes and has grown to 121 square miles (313 square kilometers). Most of those evacuated have been allowed to return home, but they face power outages after California's biggest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, has again imposed blackouts. Roughly 38,000 immigrants without legal status and 6,000 temporary farmworkers live in the county, advocacy groups say, and they've been able to help some 5,500 families, totaling about 20,000 people. Diana Solis, of Windsor, was grateful for access to information. Solis, who doesn't have legal status, was picking grapes for a winery on Saturday when her boss told her to evacuate. Her car broke down on her way to pick up her 2-year-old son, and it would be hours before they landed at a shelter in Marin County. There, firefighters came by twice a day to provide the latest updates in Spanish, Solis said. Labor and immigrant advocates say the way the government has handled communication with the Spanish-speaking communities has vastly improved since the 2017 wildfire, which claimed 22 lives and destroyed over 5,600 structures. The slower speed of the fire has helped this time around. In 2017, the fire struck in the middle of the night and moved quickly, so there was little time to prep. This year's so-called Kincade Fire spread less quickly, giving authorities more time to organize evacuations, communicate options and assuage fears. Zuniga said his agency had learned from the 2017 fire, when it didn't do initial outreach in Spanish and many expressed fear of going to shelters over their immigration status. Zuniga said that this time around, Spanish-language messaging was delivered from the very beginning, and he's seen a difference in how the immigrant community has responded. On Tuesday, a family with a 4-week-old baby was at a shelter struggling to find diapers and formula, said Mara Ventura, executive director of North Bay Jobs with Justice. Ventura said the mother told her there was no privacy to nurse and the family hadn't been able to get to a store because of the blackout. The evacuation order was lifted in the family's neighborhood, but nobody had told them. Ventura gave the family some money and helped them home. Gabriela Orantes, with the North Bay Organizing Project, said some immigrants may still fear encountering authorities at shelters, one reason her organization and others have tried to offer support. Orantes said outreach in schools and government efforts to be more inclusive of Spanish speakers have worked well, but that migrants still lack access to resources. She said the news conference that was held in Spanish was a summary of the English-language one and didn't include all the specific details of the original. "In that respect there's still a second-class citizen response that I feel is still happening," Orantes said. Lupe Arias, a Mexican immigrant who lives in Healdsburg and works in packaging for a local winery, said she's been keeping up with the latest through Cal Fire's Facebook page, where the agency is posting Spanish-language video updates daily, and through text alerts. Arias, who lacks legal status, and her husband and three kids stayed with relatives in San Francisco until the evacuation order was lifted. They've so far gone a week without pay— about $1,400 in wages from the three jobs they hold between two of them— and will likely have to borrow from friends to pay for food and rent. "This impacts me because as you know we live off what we earn every day," Arias said. The harvest season is winding down but not over, and many temporary farmworkers won't able to finish their jobs, so cash is tight and some will have to live in California or return to Mexico without the savings they expected. Solis, a single mother, was worried about how she'd pay rent on Friday, having missed several days of work. She said she'd likely ask friends to loan her money until she's back on her feet. "I still don't know what to do. It's stressful," Solis said through tears.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/california-blaze-spanish-speaking-immigrants-find-66695375

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 17:45:27 -0400

society

immigration

abcnews--2019-11-04--District: Claim of immigration school visit was unconfirmed

abcnews

District: Claim of immigration school visit was unconfirmed

Nashville school district officials say they shouldn't have described two men they say sought student records at a school as "immigration officials" without confirming they were. The acknowledgement still leaves wide uncertainty about what happened at Una Elementary. District officials say they haven't yet found a paper trail or video evidence of the incident, or even pinned down the date it might have occurred. The prospect of immigration agents seeking records at a school with a big immigrant student population quickly enflamed fears in Nashville, which has seen several high-profile run-ins with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in recent months. Nashville school district spokeswoman Olivia Brown said the district initially used the term "immigration officials" because "this was the belief of the school staff and district based on the information shared about the incident, but we recognize that this description of the individuals requesting information should not have been shared with the media as a statement of fact without obtaining further confirmation. "At no time did the district seek to call out this visit and we have made every effort to answer questions honestly and accurately with the information available at the time." Mayor John Cooper, who has set up an immigration task force, thinks the incident shows policies involving the city's interactions with federal immigration authorities need an evaluation, including timely documenting and reporting of those interactions, Cooper spokesman Chris Song said. In an initial statement to reporters last month, the school district had said "immigration officials" came to the school. A few days later, the district didn't repeat the term in a statement to media responding to scathing criticism from ICE, which said there was no evidence that its agents visited the school and added that ICE generally does not conduct immigration enforcement at schools. Instead, the district described "two men in official-looking uniforms" ''stating that they were government agents" with "official-looking IDs" who "had a list of student names and demanded those students' records." In between those two statements, an email obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request shows the district chief of staff spoke with Una Elementary Principal Amelia Dukes. He wrote that Dukes told him she never said the incident was immigration-related, and that Dukes described the men as wearing "military-style outfits." Brown says Una Elementary staff haven't been able to recall when it happened, and the district hasn't found video or other records because the date remains uncertain. The district has previously said video footage only goes back a few weeks. Brown said the school "took appropriate action" and the men left when they were told the school couldn't release the information without permission. The school didn't document the incident, copy their badges or record the men's information, Brown said. Because schools have many visitors, Brown said the visitor log is generally used when visitors enter the main area of the school and is generally not used when visitors only enter the office lobby. The incident wasn't initially reported to principal supervisors and was brought to district officials' attention during an internal meeting this school year, Brown said. The discussion prompted guidance for schools about responding to requests for student information and training for principals, Brown said. Asked if any changes will be made in response, Brown answered generally that, "Going forward, we will continue to engage with our partners to ensure that schools are prepared for how to handle similar types of situations."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/district-claim-immigration-school-visit-unconfirmed-66741674

Mon, 04 Nov 2019 17:43:56 -0500

society

immigration

abcnews--2019-11-10--Hispanic immigrant in line to lead US Catholic bishops

abcnews

Hispanic immigrant in line to lead US Catholic bishops

Clergy sex abuse is once again on the agenda as U.S. Catholic bishops meet this week — but so is a potentially historic milestone: Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, an immigrant from Mexico, is widely expected to win election as the first Hispanic president of the bishops' national conference. Gomez, 67, is currently the conference's vice president — a post that by tradition serves as springboard to the presidency. In terms of doctrine, Gomez is considered a practical-minded conservative, but he is an outspoken advocate of a welcoming immigration policy that would include a path to citizenship for many immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. In August, after a gunman targeting Mexicans killed 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, Gomez wrote a powerful blog post condemning white supremacy and noting that Spanish was spoken in North America before English was. "Men and women do not become less than human, less a child of God, because they are 'undocumented,'" Gomez wrote. "Yet, in our nation, it has become common to hear migrants talked about and treated as if they are somehow beneath caring about. " The three-day meeting, opening on Monday, will mark the end of the three-year presidential term of Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the archbishop of Galveston-Houston. At the two most recent national assemblies that DiNardo presided over, the church's persisting clergy sex-abuse crisis — and the often tentative response to it — dominated the proceedings. At this week's assembly, the topic may surface only occasionally — for example in a scheduled update on establishing a nationwide, third-party reporting system for abuse or misconduct by bishops. Also on the agenda are proposed changes in the process of "priestly formation" — the preparation of seminarians to become ordained priests. In recent years, amid the sex-abuse crisis, there has been increased focus on psychological evaluations of seminary applicants and students to reduce the likelihood of ordaining priests who would be prone to sexual misconduct. The bishops also are expected to authorize development of a "comprehensive vision" for Hispanic/Latino ministry, to be completed over the next few years. While Hispanics account for about 37% of all U.S. Catholics, they are no longer a majority-Catholic group, according to the Pew Research Center; a recent Pew survey said 47% of Hispanics in the U.S. now call themselves Catholic, down from 57% in 2009. In addition to electing a new president the bishops will be choosing a vice president, and thus the bishop in line to eventually assume the presidency. There are nine other nominees to take the post of vice president. Some of the nominees are popular among militantly conservative Catholics — such as San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois. Others, such as Archbishops Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City and Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee, also are conservatives but less eager to engage in the so-called culture wars. Three prominent figures who are viewed as relatively progressive, and as allies of Pope Francis, are not among the nominees: Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, and Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego. McElroy attracted attention on social media with a powerful speech Wednesday in San Antonio, in which he decried a "bunker mentality" pervading Catholic leadership in the U.S. "'In great part, this bunker mentality has arisen because of the pervasive failure of the church and its leaders to recognize the enormity of the crime of clergy sexual abuse," he said. The Baltimore meeting takes place against the backdrop of a Vatican investigation into Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo, New York, who is under fire for his handling of sexual misconduct. Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, who headed the inquiry, said on Oct. 31 that he had concluded his work and submitted a report to the Vatican. Coincidentally, Malone and other New York bishops will be making an official visit to the Vatican this week as their colleagues convene in Baltimore. Other U.S. bishops, as part of regional groups, will be making similar visits to Rome over the next few months. Another bishop who won't be present in Baltimore is Michael Bransfield, who resigned in September as head of West Virginia's Wheeling-Charleston diocese while facing multiple allegations of financial and sexual misconduct. Bransfield's successor, Bishop Mark Brennan, initiated a process by which Bransfield was formally "disinvited" from the Baltimore meeting.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/hispanic-immigrant-line-lead-us-catholic-bishops-66893265

Sun, 10 Nov 2019 16:41:23 -0500

society

immigration

abcnews--2019-11-11--Mexican immigrant fights for DACA as court ruling nears

abcnews

Mexican immigrant fights for DACA as court ruling nears

A Mexican immigrant fighting President Donald Trump's attempt to end a program shielding young immigrants from deportation says he is nervous about the case finally being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. Martín Batalla Vidal is a lead plaintiff in one of the cases to preserve the Obama-era program Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA, and has seen his name splashed in legal documents since 2016, when he first sued in New York. The 29-year-old certified nursing assistant at a rehabilitation clinic for traumatic brain injury in Queens, New York, has described the legal journey since then as stressful, with people sending him hateful messages. He has had to sacrifice days at work so he could go to protests, press conferences and meetings with attorneys. Even with his worries, Batalla Vidal is hopeful immigrants like him will be able to stay in the country. "I don't know what is going to happen," said Batalla Vidal, who lives with his mother, two brothers and a dog in an apartment at the border of Queens and Brooklyn. "Whatever the outcome is, we know that we have fought hard for it and we will continue fighting. I am trying to be positive." The nation's highest court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the case Tuesday. The program protects about 700,000 people, known as "Dreamers," who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families that overstayed visas. With the attempted elimination of DACA, there was renewed pressure in Congress to pass the DREAM Act, or The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, a series of never-passes proposals to protect young immigrants vulnerable to deportation. Opponents say the law rewards people for breaking the law, encourages illegal immigration and hurts American workers. Trump ordered an end to DACA in 2017, but federal courts in different states, including New York because of Batalla Vidal's lawsuit, blocked him from ending it immediately. The protections remain in effect at least until the U.S. Supreme Court issues its decision, which will likely be in 2020. Participants of the program can renew their status, but no new applicants can sign up. The Obama administration created the DACA program in 2012 to provide social security numbers, work permits and protection from deportation to people who, in many cases, have no memory of any home other than the U.S. The Trump administration argues that the program is unlawful because former President Barack Obama did not have the authority to adopt it in the first place. Batalla Vidal initially sued when a federal court in a separate case ruled that DACA permits could not be extended for a third year, as the Obama administration wanted. Now he's part of the legal fight over DACA's very existence. When Trump ordered the termination of the program, lawyers for Batalla Vidal amended his original lawsuit to fight the termination and added more individual plaintiffs. A federal judge ruled in their favor. The U.S. Supreme Court in June agreed to hear the administration's appeal of Batalla Vidal's and other cases from around the country. On Monday, Batalla Vidal planned to arrive to Washington, D.C., in a bus with his mother to join representatives from colleges, civil rights groups, Democratic-led states and individuals who also sued. On Tuesday, he will sit at the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments. "Nobody thought we would get this far," he said after speaking last week in a conference at LaGuardia Community College, where he studies criminal justice as an undergraduate student. "I have my family, my community, which has had my back since day one." Batalla Vidal crossed the Mexico border when he was 7 years old with his mother and a brother. He has two other brothers who are U.S. citizens. After going to high school in Brooklyn, he said he worked making deliveries at a deli and later at a gym to save for college, and later on to support his single mother who has thyroid and osteoarthritis. Batalla Vidal also joined Make the Road New York, a nonprofit group that defends immigrant rights. Lawyers from the organization, along with the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic of Yale Law School and the National Immigration Law Center filed the 2016 lawsuit. "His bravery and commitment to justice for our communities throughout this legal fight have been admirable and captured the attention of people all over, thousands of whom sent him messages of support after he received hate-filled messages for suing Trump," said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. "Martín is fighting for the freedom to thrive and be himself in this country, which is his home."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mexican-immigrant-fights-daca-court-ruling-nears-66906686

Mon, 11 Nov 2019 06:33:25 -0500

society

immigration

france24--2019-04-02--EU elections Eastern southern Europeans dread emigration more than immigration

france24

EU elections: Eastern, southern Europeans dread emigration more than immigration

With just seven weeks to go before EU Parliament elections a sweeping study shows that, despite a rise in anti-immigration rhetoric, many Eastern and southern Europeans say they are more worried about emigration. Despite efforts by some to frame EU legislative elections set for May 23-26 as a referendum on immigration policies, European citizens are not preoccupied by the issue, according to a European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) study conducted by the YouGov polling firm and released Monday. The survey of 45,000 people across 14 EU countries takes in 80 percent of European Parliament seats, providing an enlightening snapshot of EU public opinion. Only 23 percent of those polled cited immigration as one of the two most important issues facing their country at the moment – a figure comparable to the proportion citing unemployment (20 percent), the cost of living (18 percent), health (17 percent) and corruption (16 percent). “Most European leaders blindly subscribed to the idea that immigration was European citizens’ one and only preoccupation, but that’s a myth,” ECFR political analyst Pawel Zerka told FRANCE 24 on Monday. Zerka says that most of those surveyed did not note any effect of migration on their own lives, their jobs, their national identity or their personal security. It was only their perception of migration's impact on crime and security at the country-wide level that a majority of citizens deemed its overall effects to be negative. Only Hungarians ranked migration as the top threat to the EU, which is “little wonder given the endless stream of propaganda that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban puts out through his state-controlled media”, according to ECFR director Mark Leonard. In contrast, when the spectre of emigration is raised – people leaving their countries to settle elsewhere – more Hungarians (39 percent) and Italians (32 percent) say they are worried, despite the fiery rhetoric from Orban and Italy’s vehemently anti-migrant Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. The same goes for Spain (34 percent), and Romania (55 percent) and Poland (30 percent) farther east. “It is one of the main revelations of our study: Emigration is a concern that must be addressed,” says Zerka. Among the countries that worry most about emigration, a majority of those surveyed said they would even support legislation to prevent citizens from leaving their countries for extended periods of time. “In a Europe that prides itself on tearing down borders and promoting free travel, this move towards self-imprisonment is remarkable, but perhaps understandable,” Leonard writes. “In Romania, one in five citizens have left their country over the last decade." He said those left behind feel so desperate that they seem ready to construct new barriers for themselves, just three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The issues surrounding immigration are nevertheless likely to resurface during the European legislative campaign period. Far-right parties will likely seek to exploit the sentiments of the 22 percent of those polled who see “Islamic radicalism” as the top threat hanging over Europe by attempting to fuse the issues of radicalisation and immigration. This article has been translated from the original in French.

Alcyone WEMAËRE

https://www.france24.com/en/20190402-europe-immigration-eu-elections-eastern-southern-dread-emigration

2019-04-02 18:50:36+00:00

society

emigration

globalresearch--2019-11-11--Gaza Specialist Doctors Emigrate Due to Israel Siege

globalresearch

Gaza Specialist Doctors Emigrate Due to Israel Siege

More than 120 highly qualified Palestinian doctors emigrated from the Gaza Strip in 2018 and 2019, pushing the Ministry of Health to close medical departments in hospitals. According to a report published by Amad.ps on Saturday, the Palestinian doctors who left their posts in Gaza highlighted the pressure of working under the 12-year Israeli siege imposed on Gaza. Ahmed Shatat, an official at the doctors’ affairs division in Gaza hospitals, said doctors travel aboard to look for “better opportunities” because they “do not have regular salaries” in Gaza as a result of Israel’s actions. He stated that the problem is not with the emigration of the new graduates, but of the “skilled doctors whose emigration poses a serious danger to the health care system.” She hailed the efforts of Gaza doctors but reiterated that they are looking for some kind of safety and stability. “They have served patients and the wounded in the most difficult times,” she said, “but they have spent the best years of their life studying and getting the best skills and experience so they want to get some gains in order to have a secure and stable life for themselves and their families.” He noted that the sole alternative is treatment abroad and this is very expensive and exhausts a large per cent of its budget. Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Middle East Monitor

https://www.globalresearch.ca/gaza-specialist-doctors-emigrate-due-israel-siege/5694633

Mon, 11 Nov 2019 14:18:22 +0000

society

emigration

mediamattersforamerica--2019-04-10--Foxs Lawrence Jones explains emigration from Central American countries They suck its corruptio

mediamattersforamerica

Fox's Lawrence Jones explains emigration from Central American countries: "They suck, it's corruption. ... The food is terrible there."

STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): The freshman Democrat facing backlash after tweeting this: "The far-right loves to drum you up fear and resistance to immigrants. But have you ever noticed that they never talk about what's causing people to flee their homes in the first place? Perhaps that's because they'd be forced to confront one major factor fueling global migration: climate change." LAWRENCE JONES (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): Well, I'm not surprised because then she would have to confront her whole policies when it comes to socialism and the countries that have emboldened that movement. But look, this is a little ridiculous, even for her. You know, what people fail to realize is that when you support the illegals that are coming across this border, and I understand a lot of them are trying to come to America for a better life. But in order to get across that border you've got to pay, all right? And that's the cartel. And you'reemboldening that movement to get them across -- it's not climate change that is causing the people to get across this border. It's because those countries have governments that are dictators, they suck, it's corruption. The police departments are corrupt. The food is terrible there. That is the crisis that is coming across the border.

Media Matters for America

https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2019/04/10/foxs-lawrence-jones-explains-emigration-central-american-countries-they-suck-its-corruption-food/223397

2019-04-10 16:31:07+00:00

society

emigration

rferl--2019-05-31--Pope Highlights Sacrifices Of Romanian Emigrants

rferl

Pope Highlights 'Sacrifices' Of Romanian Emigrants

Pope Francis has praised the "sacrifices" of Romanian emigrants on the first day of his trip to the country where he arrived on May 31 amid political tensions caused by accusations that the leftist government hampered voting for expats abroad during recent European parliament elections. Millions of Romanians have left the country over the past two decades amid rampant unemployment, poverty, and ongoing corruption scandals. Francis, on his first visit to the Eastern European EU and NATO member, said the exodus had led to the "depopulation of many villages" in Romania, which still faces major social and political problems despite joining the bloc in 2007. "I pay homage to the sacrifices endured by so many sons and daughters of Romania who... have enriched those countries where they have emigrated, and by the fruit of their hard work have helped their families who have remained at home," he said in a speech at the presidential palace broadcast on national television. Francis was welcomed at the Bucharest airport earlier on May 31 by pro-European President Klaus Iohannis and cheering crowds waving Romanian flags at the airport and along his route to the capital Bucharest. The pontiff and the head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Daniel held a private meeting before praying alongside each other in the National Cathedral. Thousands of people gathered inside and outside the cathedral. When Francis was in neighboring Bulgaria, the local patriarch did not pray with him. Orthodox-Catholic relations have improved in recent decades, but tensions still remain. Christianity split between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches in 1054, an event known as the Great Schism. Romania is the third European Orthodox-majority country Francis has visited over the past month, after Bulgaria and North Macedonia on May 4-7. The pontiff’s visit comes amid political turmoil in the country, after the ruling Social Democrats, widely perceived as corrupt, suffered a severe defeat in the European parliamentary elections on May 26. The vote was marred by accusations that the PSD-led coalition had intentionally hampered the voting process abroad to prevent tens of thousands of expats from casting their ballot. Footage of long lines of Romanians being held outside many embassies across Europe has triggered widespread calls for the resignation of the government led by Prime Minister Viorca Dancila, a protégé of PSD's controversial leader Liviu Dragnea. On May 27, Dragnea himself went to prison after losing an appeal against a corruption conviction. In his speech, Francis praised Romania’s achievements in the 30 years since the fall of communism but said problems of social stability and governance remained. "It is necessary to move forward together with conviction in following the highest calling to which every state must aspire: that of responsibility for the common good of its people," he said. Later on May 31, Francis officiated mass at the Catholic Saint Joseph's Cathedral in downtown Bucharest, where thousands of people gathered. On June 1, Francis will lead Mass at Sumuleu Ciuc, a Virgin Mary shrine in the predominantly ethnic-Hungarian eastern part of Romania’s Transylvania region. A Vatican spokesman said hundreds of thousands of pilgrims are expected to attend the service, including Hungarian President Janos Ader. On June 2, Francis is due to fly to Blaj, also in Transylvania, for the beatification of seven Romanian Greek Catholic bishops who were tortured and died in prison under communism. Relations between the Orthodox Church and Romania's 150,000 Greek Catholics have been strained ever since the latter had property confiscated while their religious leaders were jailed. The pontiff is also due to meet members of the Roma community, who are often victims of discrimination in Romania and elsewhere. Francis's visit follows 20 years after Pope John Paul II received a warm welcome for his perceived role in the fall of communism.

https://www.rferl.org/a/pope-highlights-sacrifices-of-romanian-emigrants/29974779.html

2019-05-31 15:41:31+00:00

society

emigration

rferl--2019-11-26--Number Of Young Russians Who Want To Emigrate Hits Highest Level In Decade

rferl

Number Of Young Russians Who Want To Emigrate Hits Highest Level In Decade

A majority of young Russians want to leave the country, according to a new opinion poll, the highest number in a decade. The survey by the independent Russian pollster Levada Center, released on November 26, found that more than half of Russians between the ages of 18 and 24 want to leave for other countries, while 21 percent of respondents from all age groups said they would like to emigrate. The next age group that was most interested in emigrating was 25 to 39 at 30 percent, the poll showed. Russia's sluggish economic growth, which has prompted President Vladimir Putin to order his government to find ways to jump-start the economy, and a summer of pro-democracy protests have posed some of the biggest challenges the president has faced during his two decades in power. The poll reflected those issues, with respondents citing anxiety for their children's future and the economic situation as the main two reasons for considering emigration. The country's political situation and the search for better medical service were also cited as reasons to leave. The results for the 18 to 24 age group were up markedly from a similar poll in 2014, when 20 percent said they would like to leave. Since then, the number has been gradually rising, especially during the May-September period this year, when political dissent reached a crescendo with a series of protests that saw hundreds arrested amid heavy-handed tactics by police. The protests were sparked by the refusal of election officials to allow a large number of opposition figures from running in September municipal elections in Moscow and elsewhere. Fifty-six percent of those who indicated that they want to leave the country say Russia is moving in the "wrong direction" and that they are "ashamed over what is happening in the country." Of those who consider emigration as a path, 73 percent said they didn't approve of Putin's policies, while 39 percent said they were ready to participate in political events in Russia.

https://www.rferl.org/a/number-of-young-russians-who-want-to-emigrate-hits-highest-level-in-decade/30292951.html

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 11:35:24 +0000

society

emigration

sottnet--2019-07-03--Eastern Europes emigration crisis

sottnet

Eastern Europe's emigration crisis

how to embrace openness whilst avoiding the erosion of another country's social fabric. In recent years, most of the debate around the global migration of people has focused on the movement into developed countries and the political battles that ensue. Most famously, Trump has overturned the wisdom of the American political establishment by saying the unsayable on immigration. Politicians from Riga to Rome have won votes (and office) by exploiting similar anxieties. But we seldom talk about the places which, year after year, see more people leave than arrive, and the consequences of countries saying goodbye to some of their best and brightest — often for good.Nowhere is this concern more pressing than in Eastern Europe., and seven of those are in the European Union. One cause for concern among many of these countries is the EU's freedom of movement, one of the four "fundamental freedoms" of goods, capital, services, and people that bind the 28. Although most press coverage of the bloc's easternmost nations has focused on the rise of anti-immigration populism,, with some countries now favouring emigration controls.In essence, the EU's freedom of movement guarantees an absence of barriers for anyone looking for a job within the 28 countries and makes discrimination based on nationality in work or employment illegal. For many of the EU's new entrants in the East — including Poland, Hungary and Romania — a future where capital and people could move more freely between themselves and France, the UK, or Germany looked like a fast-track to the top-tier of developed nations. But somewhat ironically, it has only accelerated the departure of those who are crucial to getting there.In the last century, Eastern Europe has suffered the most dramatic population decline in recent history In the United States, this would be the equivalent of a city the size of Chicago leaving every year. This mass exodus of people is not lost on the country's politicians; last year the Croatian President called the freedom of movement the " biggest drawback " of the EU. "Mobility is good, as long as people come back. But Croatia is now recording strong negative demographic trends," she said during a visit to Brussels.Large-scale migration of healthcare workers from East to West has been an uncomfortable reality for over a decade, and the young needn't travel long distances to drastically increase their standard of living. One Estonian doctor who graduated from medical school in 2001 was able to quadruple his salary by moving only 200 kilometres to Finland.Who can blame those who head for the greener pastures on the other side?One solution, that may seem obvious to many, is to increase inward migration from overseas. There is one big problem, however.ccording to 2017's Gallup's Migration Acceptance Index , all but two of the top 10 countries least accepting of immigration were from Eastern Europe (the others being Israel and the Czech Republic, which is considered Central Europe). Even Japan, a country that has also suffered from population decline — although for different reasons — and is reluctant to accept any large-scale immigration, has now begun to implement measures that will open itself up to labour from foreign countries.The reasons people leave countries in the former Eastern bloc are numerous. Many are concerned about corruption and the limits it places on their country's future. Others already have family living elsewhere on the continent. Most simply are looking for better prospects for themselves, their children, and their children's children. Those taking part in the immigration debate in the West should be careful not to forget this fact., lest we throw away our own humanity.A welcoming nature and a desire to help those less fortunate than ourselves are admirable traits, but we mustn't forget that by welcoming the world's premier doctors, entrepreneurs, academics, and engineers — with few restrictions — we are depriving the places they come from of their potential; robbing them of the chance to make emigration an option, rather than a necessity — as many feel it is today.Ironically, while liberal immigration policies in general, and freedom of movement in particular, undoubtedly help those who leave, for the vast majority left behind, the result is a country that, in the long term, is measurably worse off. More often than not, those who frame the immigration debate in the starkest terms have little to say about this poaching of skills and talent from elsewhere.In Europe, a conundrum we will increasingly have to confront isThis may mean fundamentally reevaluating the freedom of movement, or at least restricting it to economies with comparable pay and conditions. Another solution may come in the form of increased cash transfers, and investment in smaller economies by bigger ones to try and level out standards of living. Something must be done soon, or populations in eastern Europe will continue to disappear.History shows us that mass emigration can change a country forever. In an upstairs window of the Irish president's official residence, one lamp flickers constantly. Lit by President Mary Robinson in 1990, it is a beacon to light the way home for the millions of descendants of the Irish who left their homeland over the centuries.One wonders whether the less prosperous countries of the European Union hit hardest by emigration may light their own lamps soon enough.

https://www.sott.net/article/416106-Eastern-Europes-emigration-crisis

2019-07-03 10:43:31+00:00

society

emigration

sputnik--2019-11-12--Venezuelans Who Return From Emigration and Stories Nobody Tells

sputnik

Venezuelans Who Return From Emigration and Stories Nobody Tells

Venezuelans who fled the country are starting to return home. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, last year more than 15,000 citizens returned to Venezuela. The government has created the “Homecoming Plan” (Vuelta a la Patria Plan), which offers free flights to Caracas from several Latin American countries, however the authorities don’t have time to consider the applications of everyone who wants to use the programme, and the waiting list is growing. Pack your bags, sell everything quickly, and believe that life will be better anywhere else. There will be more opportunities. Migration as an objective, as an imminent need to avoid a vital catastrophe, is the mantra in which a large part of Venezuelans who have left their country in recent years believed. It doesn’t matter where. It doesn’t matter how. The only thing that matters is to go abroad where in many cases the new (and not so new) generation has no opportunity for personal and family development. The country is in crisis. Venezuela. And the message that floats around is: you have to leave. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 4.5 million Venezuelans have left the country since the end of 2015. The agency rates these numbers as “alarming.” There are no official government data proving these figures but the truth is that the mass exodus is widely discussed in the country. Everyone knows someone who is gone. Typically, it’s a cousin, dad, son, nephew or childhood friend who’s left, who is doing well, or we don’t know how they is doing; but occasionally they send a remittance to the family they had to leave. What the mainstream media hardly talk about is the Venezuelans who are returning. The reasons for the return are diverse: the classic “it is not all gold that glitters”, the prevailing xenophobia against migrants in the destination countries, which are eminently Latin American. A widespread feeling among many of them is that “instead of having a bad time outside, I’d rather have a bad time in my country, with my family.” Overwhelming logic. The Government of Nicolás Maduro has launched the so-called Homecoming Plan. The programme has been running for about a year and it is an assistance programme for Venezuelans who want to return and have no opportunity to do it. Once back they are included in the social protection system. There are no necessary requirements to get on one of these flights except being Venezuelan and wanting to return. According the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a total of 15,856 nationals have so far returned with one of the Plan flights. Brazil is the country from where more Venezuelans have returned, with a total of 7,285 returnees; it’s followed by Peru (3,491) and Ecuador (3,242). Since its launch, the programme has operated a total of 86 completely free flights. Almost a month ago, 29-year-old Danial returned from Colombia, specifically from the city of Cali, with his wife and 4-year-old son, after a year spent there. They didn’t return with one of these government flights; they did it the same way they had left: by bus, at their own expense. They were saving. First to leave, then to return. Daniel tells his story sitting in the house that he shares with his whole family (8 people, including brothers, nephews, and other relatives) in the working class neighbourhood of Manicomio in Caracas. “It’s my dad’s house, that’s why I didn’t sell it,” Daniel says jokingly, but seriously. And then he laughs. He sold everything to leave; the only thing he had was a mattress just in case things wouldn’t go well in Cali. There they had promised him a job. Danial is a cameraman, he worked in television in Venezuela; he managed the recording sets, the camera cranes and the breaking news stress. When his job stopped providing him with money he needed to get the end of the month, he and his wife started considering the idea of emigration. This is the usual history of the common Venezuelan. The crisis and hyperinflation eat wages and devalue the national currency. In Cali they promised him a job at audiovisual technologies in the mayor’s office. “They even had a drone,” Daniel says. “But then I realised that nothing was what they had promised me. There was no job; that was the reality.” Daniel and his family chose Colombia because it is a neighbouring country and because they believed that culturally it would be similar to Venezuela. The bus trip was already an odyssey. They failed to get tickets with any travel agency and had to pay a “vaccine”, a commission, to a guy they met by chance who promised to put them on a bus to their destination. They trusted him and arrived in Cucuta, which is on the Colombian-Venezuelan border; and then to Cali after hours of travel by a “deplorable” bus, as Daniel himself describes it. “Along the way, we had three or four accidents.” And Daniel told a story that makes you want to smile and sweat at the same time. The bus ran over a cow that was crossing the road and killed it. The passengers, about twenty Venezuelans, got off the bus and started to compulsively cut off the meat and put it in pots or improvised plastic containers. This image of need and anxiety is creepy. Without the promised job, he started looking for anything. He managed to solve the accommodation problem by working as a bricklayer in the Church of a town near the capital of Valle del Cauca. In exchange for that, the priest lent them an apartment that belonged to the parish. During the week he did some freelance work that occasionally came along; sometimes he worked as an assistant to a photographer, and on weekends he sold goodies in a grocery store. “Be careful, they are Venezuelans, they can steal from you. These were things we heard every day,” he explains. “There are prejudices, even among Venezuelans themselves. We were these ‘brothers’ that always competed with each other.” Once, Daniel’s son asked him to visit a fire truck at the town station. He knew the head of the station and decided to approach. But his friend wasn’t there at that time; there was another person in charge who asked him if he was Venezuelan. When Daniel answered yes, the answer was: “I hate you.” Better not imagine that. Another shocking round-trip story is that of 53-year-old Efrén Avellaneda. Singer and salsa composer, he returned a little over a month ago from Lima, Peru with one of the Homecoming flights. In his house in Naiguatá, a small coastal town about forty minutes from Caracas, he proudly demonstrates all his albums and scores with the lyrics of his songs. He traveled with all that in a suitcase because what he wanted was to “internationalise” his music and seek success abroad singing salsa. That suitcase was the only thing that came back with him after everything had been stolen in the street. In Venezuela, Efrén has always earned his living as a composer, but the crisis doesn’t forgive culture either, so he set out abroad. He first came to Bogotá where he endured three months: “There I sold ice cream with a cart, I sold coffee and sang in the street. I decided to go to Peru because they told me there were more opportunities; but the reality is completely different,” he says. From the balcony of Efrén's house you can see the pools and rather big yachts of the Puerto Azul Club, one of the oldest and most exclusive private clubs in Venezuela. Not everyone can enter there. The membership fee alone is around $30,000, and the monthly payments are astronomical. Watching that other reality while Efrén is speaking about his hardships of economic exile makes you vomit. In Naiguatá, Efrén lives with his wife and 15-year-old daughter. He says that they don’t understand why he has returned, especially his daughter, a teenager, who more worried about having resources and the must-haves of youth: goods, leisure, parties, clothes, Instagram… than in the miseries of her own father. When he argued with his boss for claiming better working conditions, he was thrown out; and without that salary he was unable to pay for the small room he rented for sleeping, so he ended up in the street. Efrén began sleeping in parks, in arcades or where he could to protect himself from the cold. One night they stole everything from him; and his world collapsed. “I was so depressed that I blocked myself and started jumping under cars. I wanted to kill myself. I cut my whole body with a bottle. I just wanted to die.” Efren shows the deep cuts that still remain in his arms and throughout his body. He covers them with a jacket despite the suffocating heat of the Caribbean coast but they are permanent scars. One Sunday morning he came to the Venezuelan Embassy in Peru and the security guard told him to return the next day because there was no one in the offices. He went to a park and bought some bananas with the few coins he had in his pocket. “I lay down on a bench to rest but something told me that I should return to the Embassy and that is what I did,” he says. When he returned, by chance, he saw a group of about 40 Venezuelans who were returning from the airport. They were the passengers of the next Homecoming flight that hadn’t been able to leave because there had been some problem with the fuel. Efrén managed to talk to the ambassador and tell him about his case. They immediately put him on the passenger list. He was given accommodation for three days and the flight finally left on Wednesday. This was a few weeks ago but he now has glint in his eyes and his mood is completely different. He is singing salsa, puts El Cigala on YouTube and plays ball with his dog while answering the questions. Neither Efren nor Daniel would leave again. Now they believe in Venezuela despite the economic situation, which doesn’t improve or improves very slowly. When they hear friends or family say they leave, they stop them. “Give it a second thought,” they say. They share their experience and try to give advice; sometimes it works, and sometimes not so much. But they are first person life stories. The stories of Venezuelans who left and returned are wild tales of frustration. They look like an American dream that at one point turned into a nightmare that seemed hopeless. Packing is not easy even if the international press and mainstream headlines sweeten it as a journey of adventure and opportunities. The tendency to idealise emigration remains until a person is at the very bottom, where only shame and abuse await him. Homecoming is turning into more than a simple necessity.

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201911121077286924-venezuelans-who-return-from-emigration-and-stories-nobody-tells/

Tue, 12 Nov 2019 12:50:42 +0300

society

emigration

tass--2019-03-29--Government will not restrict emigration to address brain drain issue

tass

Government will not restrict emigration to address brain drain issue

MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. The Russian authorities will not introduce any restrictions in attempts to stop the exodus of skilled specialists, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in a live communication session with the users of the social network VKontakte. "Each individual is free to decide where to live and work. Everything is established under the Constitution. Entry and exit is free within the legal framework. The model that was used in this country before is unacceptable. I recall the exit procedures that were still effective in the 1980s. I believe it is absolutely normal to see people try themselves in this or that capacity abroad," Medvedev said. In his opinion it is up to the government to create conditions that would persuade young specialists to stay in the country. He dismissed as untrue the claims nearly two million people had left the country since the early 2000s. "As follows from the available statistics, I should say that in 2005-2008 some 550,000 went abroad," Medvedev said. He believes that many of those specialists who have gone elsewhere would like to return. For this they will need the feeling they will enjoy all opportunities to display their potential and to see the appropriate research and industrial infrastructure in place. "We are not very successful in this respect at the moment," he acknowledged. Medvedev recalled that at a meeting with the leading IT companies earlier in the day it was agreed that public-private partnership would be established for retaining good specialists and promoting their return home. "The government alone will be unable to cope with this. In cooperation with business it will succeed," he said. In other media

http://tass.com/society/1051202

2019-03-29 14:34:53+00:00

society

emigration

tass--2019-04-05--Russias rate of emigration-minded people no higher than in US Kremlin says

tass

Russia's rate of emigration-minded people no higher than in US, Kremlin says

MOSCOW, April 5. /TASS/. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov sees nothing unusual in people’s wish to seek their fortunes elsewhere, so the Gallup poll’s finding one in five Russians would like to leave the country is not a very high rate. The number of those who would like to emigrate from the United States is larger, he remarked. "Such surveys are held by different pollsters in different countries around the world. The rate we’ve seen is not the highest by all means," he said about the Gallup statistics. "The number of Americans who would like to emigrate from the United States is higher than one-fifth." "It’s a normal process by and large. Some people are more migration-minded than others. This is a usual theme for sociological research," Peskov said, adding that such statistics should be regarded with certain allowances for the likely margins of error. Earlier, a Gallup poll said that a record-high number of Russians would like to leave the country. According to its latest poll up to 20% Russians (a record-high rate since 2007) said they would like to resettle elsewhere. In other media

http://tass.com/politics/1052305

2019-04-05 11:15:28+00:00

society

emigration

theguardianuk--2019-04-21--Romanian hospitals in crisis as emigration takes its toll

theguardianuk

Romanian hospitals in crisis as emigration takes its toll

Gabriela Dumitru was supposed to retire years ago, but instead, she’s working longer hours than ever before. The 65-year-old is one half of a team of two doctors at the neonatology ward in Slobozia, a depressed town about two hours’ drive from Romania’s capital, Bucharest. Dumitru works three or four 24-hour shifts a week, catching an hour of sleep where possible on a sofa in a small box room decorated with pictures of kittens. Her colleague is 75, and he officially retired 15 years ago. Between them, they do the work of four or five doctors, delivering approximately 1,200 babies a year and caring for those born with difficulties or disabilities. The neonatology ward in Slobozia is a small window into a larger crisis in Romania, where thousands of doctors and nurses have left the country for higher salaries in western Europe over the past decade. In turn, Romania’s medical crisis is a small part of the huge outflows of people from central and eastern European countries since they gained membership of the EU. Across the region, governments are struggling to deal with the consequences of many of their most talented young people leaving and while many politicians in the region have played on fears of immigration to win support, research has shown that concern over emigration is more acute. In a recent survey, more than 50% of Romanians said they were concerned about the impact of emigration on the country, the highest figure among all the countries studied. An estimated 3.4 million Romanians left the country in the decade after EU accession, according to a study by Romanian business leaders, while the ministry of health estimates that 43,000 doctors departed during the period. A study by the US-based Population Reference Bureau, meanwhile, forecast Romania’s population will fall by 22% by 2050, the steepest projected global decline, due to a combination of emigration, high mortality and low birth rates. Neighbouring Bulgaria has a similarly worrying forecast. In Ialomița county, of which Slobozia is the capital, 44% of all positions for doctors are vacant, according to the most recent ministry of health statistics available. Across the country, the figure is 26%, meaning that the country is paying to train young doctors who then leave. In Slobozia, a new doctor was meant to join the neonatology ward last November, said Dumitru, after the hospital had funded a training residency at a Bucharest hospital to prepare her for the job, but she simply disappeared after completing the training. It was not the first time the hospital was let down by a new hire abandoning them. Raed Arafat, Romania’s secretary of state for emergency situations, and himself a doctor who previously ran emergency medicine in the city of Târgu Mureș, said the first wave of migration came before Romania joined the EU in 2007, with many nurses travelling to Italy. “Back then, we lost our entire contingent of nurses in Târgu Mureș in the space of two years, then we trained new ones and immediately lost half of those as well,” he recalled. When the economic crisis hit a year after EU accession, things got really bad. “We lost doctors we thought would never leave, the most highly qualified physicians. It had an impact that couldn’t be repaired,” said Arafat. He said the country was suffering from a particular shortage of emergency physicians and anaesthetists. Joining the EU provided huge opportunities for talented young Romanians to travel, study and work in western Europe, drawn by higher salaries and more opportunities. There are dozens of flights a day from airports across Romania not only to London, Paris and Rome but to many smaller regional cities where tens of thousands of Romanians have travelled for work. But it has left huge gaps in the labour market at home. In an attempt to stem the flow of medical professionals leaving the country, the government has doubled wages in the sector over the past year, but the struggle to retain talented people is particularly acute in many of Romania’s provinces, where economic potential is limited. In Slobozia, there are few opportunities locally for anyone with ambition. Large multicoloured letters spelling out the town’s name face on to the main square, an effort to brighten up the surroundings, but there is little for young people to do and few buildings constructed since the collapse of communism. At the modest offices of the local newspaper, the journalist Andrei Banu shrugged his shoulders when asked if there was anything to do in Slobozia, and laughed when asked if young people saw much of a future in the town. It is not just the skilled workers who have left the country. “There are 3 million Romanians living abroad, many of them with low qualifications, and without this we’d have huge rural unemployment,” said Cristian Ghinea, the vice-president of the Save Romania Union. “The real tragedy is that the system is not changing enough to attract them back here.” His party plans to campaign in European elections next month with the slogan: “We will bring back your children.” The government hopes that increased salaries in the medical sector will be a turning point in the outflow of medical professionals, but so far the results are not promising. The education minister, Ecaterina Andronescu, said earlier this year that 10,000 doctors left Romania in 2017 and 2018. “The vast majority who left the country did so for economic reasons,” said Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu, the speaker of the Romanian senate. The government had implemented dramatic wage increases, he said, “to put a brake on this unfortunate and unpleasant movement”. He admitted, however, that the results so far had been less than impressive. Popescu-Tăriceanu said he hoped Brexit would provide an impetus for Romanian doctors and nurses working in the UK to return home and cited a nurse he knew who was being called by friends who had left to work in Britain to ask if the stories they had heard about increased salaries in Romania were really true. Arafat said the country could be sure that people would no longer leave for money, but said the system was burdened with needless bureaucracy, meaning even if doctors want to return they may have to wait for months to do the paperwork. “We need a proactive programme to get these people back,” he said. In Slobozia, Dumitru conceded that working conditions in the hospital had improved dramatically since the dire situation in the 1990s inherited from Nicolae Ceaușescu’s isolated communist state, when she started work. She also welcomed the salary increase. But, she said, money is not everything. “I remember 25 years ago I’d have to wipe down newborns on a snowy window ledge just after a C-section,” she said. “Now we have all the equipment we need, and salaries have gone up. But it’s not just about money, we have to change absolutely everything, including the mentality in society, if people are going to want to stay here and work.”

Shaun Walker in Slobozia

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/21/romanian-hospitals-in-crisis-as-emigration-take-its-toll

2019-04-21 09:57:27+00:00

society

emigration

crooksandliars--2019-08-04--Demographics Show Why Republicans Are Pulling Out All Stops To Retain Power Its Their Last Chance

crooksandliars

Demographics Show Why Republicans Are Pulling Out All Stops To Retain Power: It's Their Last Chance

We've harped on this before but, via The Washington Post's Phillip Bump, Pew Research brings us some new data points to plug in. The most common age for white Americans is 58 years old, representing the now-aging peak of the baby boomer generation. The most common age for Latino Americans, in 2019: 11 years old. For black Americans and Asian Americans, it's 27 and 29, respectively; for multiracial Americans, it's 3 years old. This is just another way of describing the well-known demographic shift at play in the United States: After the baby boomer generation, America has steadily been getting less "white" and more diverse. White Americans still make up most of the population, but birthrates between white and non-white Americans have now reached parity: 40% of the country now identifies as one of these supposed "minorities," and the number is increasing. The message in the numbers is that the Republican Party play of stoking Fox News-ian panic over non-white Americans in order to drive old racists and not-quite-racists-but to the polls still has clout to it. They have squarely aimed their cultural panic at the baby boomer generation, now old and voting reliably and in absolute droves, even at the price of alienating almost everyone else. But the strategy has the same cholesterol and heart and lower back problems that their target population does: It has an expiration date, and it is rapidly approaching. People who grew up in the era when minority Americans were segregated out to the sidelines are steadily dying off and non-white Americans are, just as steadily, taking their place. Their own voting and policy preferences will begin to drive the national debate; the days in which a proudly racist bioluminescent blowhole like Trump can attract more voters to the Republican Party than he repulses are, no matter how successful future Republican strategizing might be, at an end. And we've harped on this before as well, but that is precisely why the current incarnation of the Republican Party, a body that is now almost exclusively white, rural, and racist, has lurched into a new anti-democratic extremism in attempts to fill the judicial ranks and other government posts with white, archconservative allies; has engaged in now-panicked efforts to restrict the voting rolls and carve out majority-white districts out of increasingly non-white communities; and has begun to scream absolute bloody murder about the dangers of non-white Americans and immigrants via increasingly conspiratorial Fox News programs, rabble-rousing "populist" speeches, and other overt forays into white nationalism. This is the very dangerous last gasp of conservative nationalism. It cannot exist, after this, not without scrapping our democratic processes. Every action Sen. Mitch McConnell and the party's other top leaders take is in service to staving off that day for as long as possible. The most conservative possible judges are being installed, and non-conservative judges blocked, so that new voter initiatives and newly emerging public norms can be tossed by fiat, as necessary, for however many decades each new human sandbag can hold out. If that means embracing the most rotten possible of allies, forgiving the most loathsome of behaviors, and outright ignoring a dozen different crimes, it is all being stomached in order to whittle down as much of democracy as can be whittled down before the Republican racist coalition gets put into overly ornate urns and lost among their children's belongings. For Mitch McConnell and the rest of the old guard, the ones who believe the confederate flag to be "heritage" and who snapped a million different neurons at the election of a man named Barack, this is it. It is now or never. Trump could be exposed as selling nuclear warheads to ISIS for 50 dollars and a Mar-a-Lago membership each, and it would be put up with—for the sake of everything else.

HunterDK

https://crooksandliars.com/2019/08/demographics-show-why-republicans-are

2019-08-04 13:00:01+00:00

society

demographics

drudgereport--2019-01-17--Generation Z may be most liberal demographic yet

drudgereport

Generation Z may be most liberal demographic yet...

A generation of post-millennials is poised to enter the electorate as perhaps the most liberal age cohort ever, fueled by unprecedented diversity and expansive views of the role of government. But Generation Z takes an even more liberal view of the role of government in society than do millennials. Seven in 10 members of Generation Z say the government should do more to solve problems, while just 29 percent say government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals. Just under two-thirds of millennials say government should do more. About half of those in Generation X and the baby boom generation agree. Many of the attitudes held by Generation Z — those born after 1996, who are now between the ages of 13 and 21 — are formed through experience with an unprecedented level of racial and societal diversity, said Kim Parker, Pew’s director of social trends research. “They’re overwhelmingly the most racially and ethnically diverse generation we’ve seen. They’re on track to be the most well-educated generation we’ve seen. They’re less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to go to college,” Parker said. One measure of the evolution of the youngest generation is that more than a third of them, 35 percent, know someone who prefers to be addressed using gender-neutral pronouns, compared with just a quarter of Millennials and less than a sixth of those in Generation X. Almost 6 in 10 members of Generation Z say forms or online profiles that ask about gender should include options other than “man” or “woman.” And 57 percent say they are very or somewhat comfortable referring to someone else by a gender-neutral pronoun, slightly lower than the 59 percent of millennials who say the same but far higher than older generations. “They look pretty similar to Millennials in terms of their liberal values and their openness to societal changes,” Parker said. Majorities of every older generation disapprove of the NFL protests. Just 3 in 10 members of Generation Z approve of Trump’s job performance, almost identical to his approval rating among millennials. Trump’s approval rating is north of 50 percent among only one age cohort, the silent generation, those between the ages of 73 and 90. The new report shows a potentially significant generational schism between the country’s youngest and oldest Republicans, one that is likely to influence debates within the GOP if those attitudes hold. Gen Zers who say they are members of or lean toward the Republican Party are more likely than older Republicans to say that racial diversity is a good thing for the country and that immigrants have a positive impact on the country. By contrast, those in Generation Z who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party are virtually identical to Democrats in older generations, on everything from the role government plays to the benefits of diversity and immigration. “Democrats are more in lock step across generations on these big social and political issues,” Parker said. “You don’t see these kinds of generational divides among Democrats.” The Pew Research Center study is based on a survey of 920 teens between the ages of 13 and 17, conducted online in September, October and November, and on a nationally representative survey of 10,682 adults over the age of 18 conducted online in September and October. The total sample of members of Generation Z, 1,178 respondents, carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/37JOVfvTFWk/425818-generation-z-may-be-most-liberal-demographic-yet

2019-01-17 22:25:38+00:00

society

demographics

drudgereport--2019-02-04--Sharp demographic divides in economy

drudgereport

Sharp demographic divides in economy...

Click here to print this page WASHINGTON (AP) — Just how financially secure you feel depends on your age, your race, your education and — perhaps not surprisingly — your income. A new survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that college graduates feel far more confident than high school graduates that they could afford an emergency $1,000 expense. People ages 18 to 29 are more optimistic about finding a good job than those in their 60s are. But Americans in their 60s are more confident than adults under 30 are about affording credit card and other expenses. Most white Americans say they can manage their housing costs; blacks and Hispanics are far less confident that they can keep up. The poll's findings reflect the sharp demographic divides in the U.S. economy. The nation's prosperity since the Great Recession ended nearly a decade ago has benefited some groups of people far more than others and is obscuring economic soft spots caused by a persistent wealth gap. Overall, about 6 in 10 Americans describe their personal finances as good. Most of the rest say they're in poor shape financially. The nation's unemployment rate is a healthy 4 percent, the pace of hiring has accelerated in recent months and average hourly earnings have risen 3.2 percent over the past 12 months. Yet whatever financial confidence people feel depends largely on their individual circumstances and challenges. And compared with last year, fewer Americans overall expect the good economy to last in 2019. Some of the doubts reflect souring opinions of President Donald Trump, who partially shut down the government for 35 days over his demand for a wall along the southern U.S. border with Mexico. Though Trump failed to secure his requested $5.7 billion, the resulting temporary standoff deprived many government workers of paychecks and raised doubts about the president's economic stewardship. The poll shows that Trump's rating on handling the economy — a strength throughout his presidency — fell to 44 percent in January from 50 percent in December. His overall approval rating in the poll was 34 percent. "I can't say he's been all bad on the economy," said Ellen Collins, 70, of Centerville, Ohio. "But he's a child. He's egotistical." Forty-four percent say they think the economy will worsen over the next year. About a quarter (27 percent) say the economy will improve; just as many think it will stay the same. That's in contrast to a year ago, when expectations of the year ahead were almost evenly split: 33 percent said then that they thought conditions would deteriorate, and 34 percent expected them to improve. Collins said the stock market's sell-off in the closing months of 2018, likely fueled in part by Trump's trade war with China, hurt her retirement savings. She figures, though, that stocks will ultimately rebound to cover those losses. Collins, a retired teacher and information technology specialist, stressed how fortunate she felt to have enough savings and insurance to cover the costs of two years of chemotherapy treatments she needed for cancer. "I don't know what people who don't have insurance do," she said. Health care costs and other unexpected expenses are a source of concern for many in the AP-NORC survey. Americans who are most likely to feel financially secure are those who earn more than $100,000 — nearly double the median household income. Likewise, a college education appears to be a significant buffer against financial risks. A majority of college graduates (58 percent) say they're very confident they could afford an emergency expense of $1,000. By contrast, more than half of Americans with a high school education or less (54 percent) say they have little or no confidence that they could pay a surprise bill that high. And while younger workers might not have as high a starting income as previous generations did, people 18 to 29 are more hopeful about finding decent jobs than Americans in their 60s are. Thirty-five percent of those under 30 say they're very confident about hiring possibilities. Just 23 percent of those over 60 feel that way. Even some workers in their 50s find it difficult to land a job that meets their financial needs. Sarah Apwisch, 52, said she was recently laid off as a market researcher only to be rehired in a new role at the same company at just 60 percent of her previous pay. "I'm honestly taking this job because I'm afraid of losing health care," said Apwisch, who is married and lives in the small city of Three Rivers, Michigan, where she works remotely for a company in Chicago. She says she's optimistic about the overall economy but says the growing role of big data and social media has caused the market research industry to fall into decline. "If I lose the connection with my current employer, it will be harder for me to get a job in my industry because most of the jobs are in the big cities," she said. Though older Americans don't feel as much job security, most of them do have the benefit of decades of income and savings. About six in 10 Americans in their 60s say they're confident about paying their credit card and other payments, while 43 percent of Americans under 30 feel that way. On housing affordability, a stark racial divide exists: About six in 10 white Americans say they can manage their housing costs, compared with just about a third of black and Hispanic Americans. White Americans are far likelier to own a home than are those minority groups, who face rising rents in many high-cost urban areas. Chris Edwards, a 28-year-old African-American in Columbia, Missouri, said he couldn't afford a major emergency expense. A renter, Edwards relies on Medicaid and income from Social Security's disability program. If he were hit by a sudden expense of $400? "I wouldn't know," Edwards said. "I wouldn't know." The AP-NORC poll of 1,062 adults was conducted Jan. 16 to 20 using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone. Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/PTx-4YTO9To/ap-norc-poll-how-financial-security-varies-by-age-income

2019-02-04 18:55:37+00:00

society

demographics

freedombunker--2019-04-08--Brickbat Demographics Are Destiny

freedombunker

Brickbat: Demographics Are Destiny

The Illinois House of Representatives has voted to require the boards of all publicly traded corporations headquartered in the state to have at least one female and one black member starting in 2021. Those that fail to comply faces fines of up to $300,000.

Ed Krayewski

http://freedombunker.com/2019/04/08/brickbat-demographics-are-destiny/

2019-04-08 08:00:00+00:00

society

demographics

freedomoutpost--2019-11-12--NYT, WaPo: Mass Immigration, Demographic Changes Fueled Virginia’s Democrat Wins

freedomoutpost

NYT, WaPo: Mass Immigration, Demographic Changes Fueled Virginia’s Democrat Wins

The New York Times and The Washington Post declared that mass immigration and changes in demographics were an important reason that Democrats took complete control of Virginia. They now control the governor’s seat, both chambers of the state’s legislature and the lieutenant governor’s seat for the first time in almost 30 years. The New York Times and The Washington Post admitted that mass immigration and changes in demographics were a significant reason that Democrats took complete control of Virginia last week. take our poll - story continues below Would election by popular vote be better than the electoral college? • None Would election by popular vote be better than the electoral college? • None Would election by popular vote be better than the electoral college? • None The democrats want it so they can steal elections. • None This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Completing this poll grants you access to Freedom Outpost updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to this site's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. Democrats now control the governor’s seat, both chambers of the state’s legislature and the lieutenant governor’s seat for the first time in nearly 30 years. Following the Democrats’ dominate night in Virginia, The New York Times admitted that years of mass immigration are starting to radically change the electoral map “from Richmond to Atlanta, Houston, Denver and elsewhere and Democrats are starting to breach Republicans’ firewalls in elections.” More Not long ago, this rolling green stretch of Northern Virginia was farmland. Most people who could vote had grown up here. And when they did, they usually chose Republicans. The fields of Loudoun County are disappearing. In their place is row upon row of cookie-cutter townhouses, clipped lawns and cul-de-sacs — a suburban landscape for as far as the eye can see. Unlike three decades ago, the residents are often from other places, like India and Korea. And when they vote, it is often for Democrats. Once the heart of the confederacy, Virginia is now the land of Indian grocery stores, Korean churches and Diwali festivals. The state population has boomed — up by 38 percent since 1990, with the biggest growth in densely settled suburban areas like South Riding. One in 10 people eligible to vote in the state were born outside the United States, up from one in 28 in 1990. It is also significantly less white. In 1990, the census tracts that make up Mr. Katkuri’s Senate district were home to about 35,000 people — 91 percent of them white. Today, its population of 225,000 is just 64 percent white. The Washington Post essentially reported the same thing following last week’s election results: Virginia now stands as a fearful avatar for Republicans of what the nation’s unrelenting demographic and cultural changes mean for the party, as the moderate-to-liberal urban and suburban areas grow and more conservative rural areas lose ground. Similar shifts are starting to hit such states as North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia and Texas, as minority populations increase and white college-educated voters continue to turn away from the Republican brand. The democrats can no longer win an election fair and square. They have to flood districts with immigrants who will vote democrat, continue on with voter fraud, redraw districts, whatever is necessary to win. They truly do not care about US citizens or about our great nation. They want to destroy it. It’s all about power and greed. It can only be stopped by voting Republican, enacting term limits, and draining the swamp. Stop listening to Fake News and start thinking about how we can help Trump save our country.

Alicia Luke

https://freedomoutpost.com/nyt-wapo-mass-immigration-demographic-changes-fueled-virginias-democrat-wins/

Tue, 12 Nov 2019 17:58:26 +0000

society

demographics

globalresearch--2019-04-30--Demographic Crisis Russia to Facilitate the Granting of Russian Citizenship to Ukrainians

globalresearch

Demographic Crisis: Russia to Facilitate the Granting of Russian Citizenship to Ukrainians

President Putin’s proposal to make it easier for all Ukrainians to receive Russian citizenship represents a bold effort to court his country’s civilizationally similar neighbors as “replacement migrants” and will lead to a competition with Russia’s historical rival Poland for this valuable “human resource”. It’s no secret that Russia has had serious problems maintaining its population levels ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and last year actually saw its first drop in a decade. This process is occurring concurrently with a surge in birthrates among the country’s Muslim minority and leading to the likelihood that approximately one-third of its inhabitants will follow Islam within the next 15 years, according to Russia’s grand mufti. Moscow is well aware of the socio-political challenges that this profound demographic shift might entail, especially if its controversial Article 282 proves insufficient for preemptively dealing with the dangerous rise of far-right ultra-nationalist ideas that might eventually inspire Christchurch-like terrorist attacks that seek to provoke a destabilizing so-called “Clash of Civilizations” within its borders. No matter how visionary President Putin’s 2012 manifesto on ethnicity and immigration is, it’s impossible for it to be perfectly applied in practice so it should therefore be taken for granted that some security incidents will eventually happen. The UN predicted last year that Russia’s population will shrink by 11 million before 2050, which is one of the reasons why Prime Minister Medvedev warned earlier this month about the need to prevent a demographic collapse similar to the one that happened in the 1990s. The other implied one might also have to do with the fact that this expected population loss that will presumably be led by the country’s ageing titular nationality of Orthodox Russian Slavs will result in an even larger percentage of its citizens being Muslim by that point, which could possibly accentuate the socio-political challenges that are usually associated with this sort of demographic transition in majority-Christian countries. Although President Putin implemented a policy to give generous subsidies to women who give birth to two or more children, he probably realizes that it won’t be as successful as needed to maintain both the country’s population levels and its existing religious balance, hence why he’s now proactively trying to court Ukrainians as “replacement migrants”. These neighboring people are “civilizationally similar” to Russians in that they’re mostly Orthodox Slavs who speak a related language, and their possible large-scale migration to the country could theoretically balance the surging birthrates of Russia’s Muslim population and offset its predicted overall population decline. This was probably one of the reasons why President Putin just passed a decree making it much easier for the people of Donbass to obtain Russian citizenship and then soon thereafter declared that this policy might be extended to include all of Ukraine’s over 40 million people. There were slightly less than 2 million Ukrainians living in Russia nearly a decade ago as recorded by the country’s census at the time, which is roughly equal to how many have moved to Poland since the 2014 EuroMaidan coup in search of work, where most of them presently have no path to citizenship and many are now reportedly considering moving to Germany or other Western European countries. Nevertheless, Poland’s population is also afflicted with similar problems as Russia’s own in the sense that it also suffers from the natural decline that many developed economies do, so Ukrainians could conceivably also function as “civilizationally similar” “replacement migrants” for Warsaw just as they could for Moscow, meaning that these two historic rivals might end up competing with one another for this valuable “human resource”. Unlike in times past, this competition won’t be waged by military means and take place in the geopolitical realm, but will be a battle of soft power with an outcome that will ultimately be determined by which of the two countries provides more appealing economic prospects for the “new arrivals”. While Russia has the geographically expansive Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union, Poland has the promising Warsaw-led “Three Seas Initiative” that comes with the added benefit of EU membership. It’s difficult to predict whether the Ukrainians that are living in Poland would relocate to Russia in response to President Putin’s citizenship proposal or if a new batch of their countrymen that are still living in their homeland will move there instead, but what’s clear is that Moscow is now competing with Warsaw to woo Ukrainians as “civilizationally similar” “replacement migrants” to offset its natural population decline and maintain its existing religious balance that’s poised to dramatically change in the coming years following a surge in Muslim birthrates. Unlike Merkel and her implicit policy of “replacement migration” from the “Global South”, President Putin would prefer to court Ukrainians from the former Soviet Union, but in both cases each leader seems to have resigned themselves to the fact that their country’s demographic problems won’t be solved without a large-scale influx of immigrants. Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. This article was originally published on Eurasia Future. Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Andrew Korybko

https://www.globalresearch.ca/russia-competing-poland-ukrainian-replacement-migrants/5676012

2019-04-30 13:09:49+00:00

society

demographics

latimes--2019-11-18--California's changing demographics will further doom Republicans

latimes

California's changing demographics will further doom Republicans

Democrats dominate politics in California and Republicans are doomed for one simple, overriding reason: shifting demographics. In short, the GOP’s core constituency is white people and they’re a declining slice of the California population pie. Conversely, Democrat-backing Latinos and Asian Americans have been expanding their slices. That pattern is projected to continue, although at a slower pace. So the raw numbers won’t be getting any better for the already weakened California GOP. “Republicans are heading into a demographic cul-de-sac,” says longtime Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. “This is not just in California, but nationally. It’s happening here first. But it’ll tend to happen around the country.” Republican guru Mike Murphy, who has worked on six presidential campaigns and managed several gubernatorial races — including former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s in 2003 — says “the Republican Party does great with white voters, particularly older white voters. But they’re shrinking as part of the electorate.” “California is the future. It tends to be more non-Caucasian than most states. But we’re heading into that for the rest of the nation. And how are Republicans doing in California? They’ve got to figure out how to compete here or it’s the ice age.” Demographics are an eye-glazer, but California’s historic shift has been a political game-changer. The state has turned from battleground purple to one-sided deep blue in 25 years. It’s not solely — arguably not even mostly — because of the 1994 Republican-backed anti-illegal immigration initiative, Proposition 187. That measure usually gets the credit or blame, depending on one’s politics. The initiative would have denied most public services, including schooling, to people living here illegally. Voters approved it in a landslide. But federal judges tossed it out. No question, the harsh campaign pitch for Proposition 187 angered and frightened millions of Latinos, turning them even more against the GOP. It also sparked a new generation of Latino state political leaders. This is Murphy’s analogy: “Pretend you’re buying a car. You go to a Republican dealership and the salesman’s first line is, ‘I want to throw your parents and grandparents in jail. Now let me tell you about the new Chevys.’ And the dealership wonders why it isn’t selling any cars.” Today, six of eight statewide elected officials are people of color — three are Latino, two are Asian American and one is African American. All eight are Democrats. Republicans haven’t elected a statewide official since 2006. Democrats hold supermajorities in both legislative bodies and own California’s U.S. House delegation 46 to 7. But all this probably would have happened even if Proposition 187 had never existed. The divisive initiative just made the transition to total power easier for Democrats. The GOP demise was inevitable given its increasingly hard-line conservatism as pragmatic moderates left the party. The shrinking GOP was on opposite sides of Democrats and independents on many issues: gun control, abortion, environmental protection, taxes and spending, immigration and a border wall — not to mention their opinions of the immigrant-bashing polarizer in chief, President Trump. In 1990, Republicans made up 39% of California’s registered voters. Today they’re down to 23.6%. That’s third place behind independents, who since 1990 have soared from 9% to 26.7% Democrats have dropped slightly, from nearly 50% to 44%. It’s all in the numbers. In 1990, 57% of California’s population was white. Latinos constituted about 26%, with Asians at 9% and African Americans at 7%. In 2020, the population is estimated to be 39.4% Latino, 38.2% white, 13% Asian and 5.7% black, according to the state Finance Department’s Demographic Research Unit. Projecting to 2040, the population pie is expected to be about 42% Latino, 35.6% white, 12.5% Asian and 5.9% black. In Los Angeles County, a little over 26% of the population is white and that number is projected to dip to 24% by 2040. Latinos now are at nearly 50% and will rise to almost 53% in 2040. The reason all this matters politically is that voters of color are snubbing the Republican Party and they’re increasing in numbers. The majority of Latino likely voters, 58%, are registered as Democrats, according to the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. An additional 23% are independents. Only 15% are Republicans. Among Asian likely voters, 43% are Democrats and 36% are independents. Republicans claim just 18%. White voters? They’re mixed, as they’ve always been: 40% Democrat, 35% Republican and 20% independent. The caveat for Latinos is that they’ve never exerted their full strength on election day. Their turnouts have been subpar. But last November — probably because Trump was their lightning rod — they showed up in better numbers. They cast 21% of the total votes, according to Paul Mitchell, who runs a political data firm. Still, that’s underperforming. They were 26% of registered voters. I called the California Republican Party’s new chairwoman, Jessica Patterson, the first woman and Latina to hold that post. What can she do to revive the party? “It’s an incredible challenge,” she acknowledged. “I’m focusing on the future, including engaging communities that haven’t always heard from Republicans — focusing on key issues facing California like homelessness and the skyrocketing cost of living … education, public safety…. “We need to talk about the Democrats’ failures, but also what we would do instead. We have to be more than a party of ‘no.’” Don’t talk about the wall, however, unless you’re ready to say “no.” Trump’s wall is merely another barrier between Latinos and Republicans.

George Skelton

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-18/skelton-california-changing-demographics-republicans-democrats-elections

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 08:00:34 -0500

society

demographics

lewrockwell--2019-11-08--Top 25 Cool Demographics Facts

lewrockwell

Top 25 Cool Demographics Facts

I am not going to cover things that well-informed normies already know: How Israel is a weird outlier in fertility by First World standards, and the collapse of fertility in the Islamic world; how life expectancy has been soaring nearly everywhere; the “Great White Death” in the US and how all races in the US outperform their counterparts elsewhere, except for American Whites, who live less than almost all Europeans. Nor am I going to cover truly banal stuff, such as how tiny Bangladesh has more people than Russia. Nor particularly controversial stuff such as Eurabia, Great Replacement, etc. which I have covered elsewhere. For all of this you have websites like Our World in Data and books by Steven Pinker. I am instead going to focus on the truly little known and esoteric that I happen to find most interesting, especially from a historical or futurist perspective. (1) The world population of Greeks has been steady at ~10 million since the age of Alexander the Great. Their percentage of the world total plummeted from ~5% to slightly more than 0.1% today. Source: Hansen, Mogens Herman. 2008. “An Update on the Shotgun Method.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 48 (3): 259–86. (2) In 1900, Europe’s population (~400M) was quintuple that of Sub-Saharan Africa’s (~80M). By 2100, Sub-Saharan Africa’s population (~4B) will be eight times as great as Europe’s (~650M). (3a) Comparing the populations of modern nation-states to their medieval (pre-Black Death) counterparts is a fascinating exercise: • France grew only 3x from ~20M to today’s ~65M • Byzantines-Greeks remained at just ~10M (see above) (3b) So despite the vast losses of Russia’s demographic potential during the 20th century, it still did rather well in the long-term, increasing its share of Europe’s population from ~5% to ~20% (~25% if inc. UKR/BEL). Swapped places with France in this respect. Glory to the musket and the potato! (3c) At a larger scale, while both Europe and China were at ~100M in Middle Ages, now China has twice as many people, 1.4B to 700M. The advantages of backwardness – delayed fertility transition left more time for population to soar. (4) France was the world’s first modern nation to undergo the fertility transition. It had its genesis with the French nobility during 18C. Subsequently, France would fall from having 1/5 Europe’s population in Middle Ages to <10% by late 19C. Source: Spolaore, Enrico, and Romain Wacziarg. 2019. “Fertility and Modernity.” Working Paper Series. National Bureau of Economic Research. (5) Huge demographic losses on the level of World War II in Eastern Europe were typical in the Malthusian era. • 30 Years War in Germany, Mongol invasion of Russia and Persia, reduced their populations by a third. • Wars & anarchy accompanying the end of dynasties usually killed 33%-50% of Chinese. (6) Were the Turks the big demographic winners of the 20th century? • 2017: 80.8M Turks vs. 13.7M Greeks+Armenians (6:1) & ~150M in RF – secure as never before. (7) The population ratio between Russia and the Ukraine fell from less than 3:1 to almost 5:1 since 1992. It is ironic that Ukrainian independence has been worse for Ukraine’s population balance vis-a-vis Russia than anything that Lazar Kaganovich and the Nazis did. (8a) Russia just within its current borders, assuming otherwise analogous fertility and migration trends, would have had 261.8 million people by 2017 without the triple demographic disasters of Bolshevism, WW2, and the 1990s – that’s double its actual population of 146 million. (8b) According to my very rough calculations, based on various sources, the population change for each of the following in their current borders between 1913/14 and 1945/46 was about as follows: Assuming a threefold expansion in all of these populations, we could have been looking to a Russian Empire or Republic with a further ~120M fully Russified Belorussians and largely Russified Ukrainians, for a total Slavic population of almost 400M. That’s twice bigger than the number of White Americans today, the most populous single European ethnicity, and almost as much as all of today’s Western Europe. (8c) Total population of a hypothetical Russian Empire that also retained Central Asia and the Caucasus, and that hadn’t been bled white by commies, Nazis, and Westernizers during the course of the 20th century, would likely have been not that far off from Dmitry Mendeleev’s 1906 projection of 594 million for 2000. Source: Understanding Russia by Dmitry Mendeleev (yes, the chemist). (9) So far as I can tell, the Latvians, Estonians, and Ashkenazi Jews are the only peoples with fewer people today than in 1914. It is ironic that they played the most disproportionate roles (per capita) in cementing Bolshevism in Russia. God must really hate commies. (10) That said, the Irish have an even more extreme and unique anti-record: There are fewer of them today (~6.6M in all Ireland) than in 1840 (8.5M)! I wonder what they did to anger God so. (11) Communism isn’t always an unmitigated demographic disaster. As @Cicerone973 has discovered, for the first time ever, births in Best Korea (25M) probably overtook South Korea (52M) last year. (Even if, as Myers argued, Songun/Juche has almost zilch to do with Marxism). (12) The wonders of Maoism: Between 1960 and 1978, the share of China’s urban population FELL from 20% to 18%. (13) We have no solid idea if China’s TFR is ~1.6 children per woman, ~1.1 children per woman, or anywhere in between, e.g. see here, here, and here. This seems rather important given China’s importance. (14a) Russia’s middle-aged male mortality in the 1990s and early 2000s was worse than under late Tsarism. In particular, alcohol abuse accounted contributed to about a third of all deaths. (This has all since drastically improved). (14b) Contra Pinker, Russia has seen a “de-civilizing” process in terms of homicide rates (and many other indicators of social wellbeing) in the last third of the 20th century. This was perfectly correlated with its alcoholization epidemic. In recent years, the Russian homicide rate has retreated back to its pre-1965 “steady state” of ~5/100,000. Of course, there is still plenty of lost ground, since c.1900 Russia’s rates were similar to those of Italy, Finland, and Japan, whereas all these countries are now at least 5x less violent. (14c) During the later Soviet era, the Ukraine consistently had a 2 years higher life expectancy than Russia – a difference that dates back well to the 19th century (probably on account of them drinking less, even back then). But Ukraine has been stagnating since early 2010s; still below its 1960s all time peak, Russia overtook by 2018. (15) Central Asians went from 10% of Russian population in 1914 to half today, while births have almost equalized since the early 1990s. Central Asians increasingly looking to work in South Korea, which is ~20 years ahead of China in terms of demographic and socio-economic development. Once China’s urbanization maxes out at ~75-80% by ~2040, I expect labor migration from C. Asia to reorient there. Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $10.00 Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $50.00 Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $25.00 Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $15.00

No Author

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/11/no_author/top-25-cool-demographics-facts/

Fri, 08 Nov 2019 04:01:00 +0000

society

demographics

mediamattersforamerica--2019-01-17--Laura Ingraham warns that demographic changes are coming to your state

mediamattersforamerica

Laura Ingraham warns that "demographic changes" are "coming to your state"

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): The problems New York faces are because of the federal government. It has nothing to do with the fact that you are among the highest taxed people in the country, driving business out, over-regulating, giving free healthcare and -- at least in Manhattan -- to illegal immigrants, becoming a sanctuary state, for all intents and purposes, none of that has a drain on the state budget. Why are we talking New York on the Laura Ingraham podcast? Because just like we exposed what's going on in California, coming to a state near you if these demographic changes keep flipping states from Republican to Democrat, you can expect the same types of dynamics to be at play in your state. You see these teacher walkouts in California? We got -- we got hundreds of thousands of kids effected, well, guess what? Expect it in your state if these high-tax policies roll into other parts of this country.

Media Matters for America

https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2019/01/17/laura-ingraham-warns-demographic-changes-are-coming-your-state/222566

2019-01-17 22:28:52+00:00

society

demographics

nationalinterest--2019-10-13--Forget North Korea: South Korea's Biggest Problem is a Demographics Disaster

nationalinterest

Forget North Korea: South Korea's Biggest Problem is a Demographics Disaster

Key point: Not an easy problem to fix? Threats to South Korea’s survival are not only from the North. Even as Seoul seeks detente with its communist neighbor while engaging in an increasingly bitter row with Japan, the nation’s demographic decline could see its economy facing a similar structural slowdown that puts a permanent brake on growth. The challenge facing Korean policymakers was highlighted by a recent government report, which showed that its falling fertility rate could see its population start declining as early as 2020. Previous estimates in 2016 suggested the population would peak in 2023 under only the most pessimistic scenario. Released in March this year, the report by Statistics Korea predicted South Korea’s population could peak at around fifty-one million this year, before dropping to the 1972 level of around thirty-four million by 2067 under the most pessimistic scenario. Seniors aged sixty-five and older would account for nearly half the population by 2065 under even the medium-growth scenario, making it the grayest developed nation in the world and potentially threatening its military capabilities. In contrast, immigration-friendly countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia are seen having a quarter or less of their populations who are sixty-five years old or older over the same period. South Korean women are clearly having fewer children, according to the latest figures, with a fertility rate—the average number of children born per woman—dropping to a record low of 0.98 in 2018. This was lower than Japan’s 1.43 and well below the estimated “replacement-level fertility” rate of around 2.1 for most nations. In 2017, just 14 percent of South Korea’s population was sixty-five years old or older—around half Japan’s share. Its proportion of working-age people between fifteen and sixty-four was 73 percent, but this could shrink to just 46 percent by 2065 under the medium-case scenario, putting it even below Japan’s 51 percent ratio. Similar to Japan, the aging population reflects economic challenges for the youth in tying the knot. A 2015 survey found that 58 percent of men ages twenty to forty-four were unwed, along with 48 percent of women—a damning statistic where just 1.9 percent of children are born outside of marriage. Statistics Korea estimates that the total dependency ratio, representing the number of dependents (children and senior citizens) supported by every one hundred members of the productive population, could rise from 36.7 in 2017 to 120.2 by 2067. The median age is also seen rising from 42 in 2017 to 62.2 over the same period. Experts blame the expense of childrearing, the high youth jobless rate and the burden placed on working mothers, who still carry out the majority of household chores and childcare. Intensely competitive education and job markets are also seen as factors behind the baby strike. This [Korean] society is just way too competitive. I don’t think it’s right for any child to go through this system,” a thirty-four-year-old Korean woman told the Agence France-Presse. Like their Western counterparts, Korean women are increasingly delaying marriage to put priority on higher education and career. The latest data showed more than 30 percent of all women who gave birth in 2018 were thirty-five years or older. And with the highest gender pay gap in the OECD, South Korean women have little incentive to climb the career ladder, with nearly a quarter quitting work due to “marriage, childbirth or childcare.” Per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) can still expand in the face of a declining population, as seen in Japan. Yet an aging society drags down investment and productivity growth, ultimately slowing GDP growth. For the government, fewer workers to support an expanding elderly population will challenge its finances, increasing social welfare spending even while taxation revenues decline. South Korea’s Hyundai Research Institute sees the nation’s potential growth rate dropping from 2.7 percent to as low as the 1 percent range “as soon as 2030,” senior analyst Hong Joon-pyo told Japan’s Nikkei. Moody’s Investors Service has warned that the credit ratings of both South Korea and Japan could come under negative pressure due to “the combination of lower economic growth, higher government debt and weaker debt affordability amid slowing expansion in and aging of their workforces particularly in the 2030s.” “Weaker debt affordability will materialize in the 2030s as its debt burden increases more sharply, weighing on the government’s fiscal strength,” the credit-rating agency added. With Korean media claiming the baby bust as “a bigger risk than a currency crisis,” Seoul responded by spending some 117 trillion won ($97 billion) between 2016 and 2018 on measures aimed at lifting the birthrate. These have included introducing paid maternity leave, providing subsidies for fertility treatment, free medical care for babies and childcare subsidies. Yet analysts including Hong still see the government facing challenges to preventing a graying society. “To raise economic growth potential, we will need to create a friendly working environment for women, relax immigration policies, and further develop a friendly investment environment that includes deregulation and creating new industries,” Hong said. Another analyst warned of the threat to retirees. “At this rate, it will be difficult to maintain the pension system,” Yonsei University economist Sung Tae-yoon told the Japanese daily. “We will need a drastic change to our current policies, such as the intake of immigrants.” Yet even the most favorable government policies may not reverse the trend. According to economist Lyman Stone, the current decline in fertility across the developed world “is nearly unmatched in its global breadth and its severity” since the end of the baby boom in the 1960s and 1970s. For policymakers though, even Nordic-style policies offering extensive family support “appear to have very limited impacts on long-term fertility,” he suggests. Barring a sudden transformation in the South, could reunification with the North solve the problem? Not according to the United Nations, which has estimated that North Korea’s fertility rate has started to slowly decline, currently below replacement level at 1.9. An indicator of what might lie ahead comes from Germany, where reunification led to a rapid decline in the birthrate in eastern Germany post-unification, falling to 0.8, according to Troy Stangarone, senior director and fellow at the Korea Economic Institute of America. While the number of births in the east eventually recovered, the higher fertility rate of 1.6 in some former East German states still remains well below the replacement level. Although Korean reunification might proceed in a more orderly manner conducive to a steady fertility rate, “there is little indication that one could expect birth rates in the North to increase significantly once unification or economic integration occurred,” Stangarone argues. For anyone expecting Koreans to suddenly welcome mass immigration such as seen in the West, last year’s protests over Yemeni refugees should dispel any illusions. Just 561 refugees from the war in Yemen arrived in South Korea’s Jeju Province, a trivial number compared to the 890,000 asylum-seekers who arrived in Germany in 2015. Yet despite being restricted to the relatively isolated island of Jeju, the public reacted with “hysteria” according to Foreign Policy, with a petition to the president demanding the government reject the refugees garnering more than seven hundred thousand signatures. South Korea’s declining population will also pose challenges for its military, which currently has around 625,000 troops defending against the North’s estimated 1.2 million active personnel. As the number of youth eligible for military service declines, Seoul will find it difficult to maintain its current structure, increasing the pressure on allies such as the United States, which currently has around 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea. In its latest forecasts, the International Monetary Fund sees South Korea’s GDP growth easing from 2.7 percent last year to 2.6 percent in 2019, driven by weakening external demand. Other analysts such as ANZ Research are projecting just 2 percent GDP growth this year. The Washington-based IMF notes that “potential growth has slowed down and its prospects are hampered by unfavorable demographics and slowing productivity growth, driven by structural weaknesses.” For Asia’s fourth-largest economy, averting its demographic decline could prove even more challenging than handling a volatile North Korea or rebuilding ties with Japan, which is already watching its population decrease. Korean policymakers need not travel too far to see a glimpse into the future. Anthony Fensom is an Australia-based freelance writer and consultant with more than a decade of experience in Asia-Pacific financial/media industries. This article appeared earlier this year.

Anthony Fensom

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/forget-north-korea-south-koreas-biggest-problem-demographics-disaster-87466

Sun, 13 Oct 2019 16:00 EDT

society

demographics

abcnews--2019-10-31--St. Louis official 'horrified' by gay discrimination defense

abcnews

St. Louis official 'horrified' by gay discrimination defense

A top St. Louis County official is blasting legal staff for arguing that gay discrimination in Missouri is legal in a case in which nearly $20 million was awarded to a police sergeant. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said Wednesday in a statement that he was "horrified and surprised that argument was used" in Sgt. Keith Wildhaber's case. Wildhaber says he was told to "tone down his gayness" and passed up for promotion 23 times. County Counselor Beth Orwick says she instructed two lawyers working on the case not to make the argument. She says she was mortified and surprised when they wrote in a motion that the Missouri Human Rights Act "explicitly omits any reference to sexual orientation as a protected class."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/st-louis-official-horrified-gay-discrimination-defense-66663390

Thu, 31 Oct 2019 10:19:36 -0400

society

discrimination

abcnews--2019-10-31--WeWork's ex-CEO faces new pregnancy discrimination complaint

abcnews

WeWork's ex-CEO faces new pregnancy discrimination complaint

A former top aide to WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann has filed a federal discrimination complaint against him, saying she was demoted for becoming pregnant, subjected to derisive comments and ultimately fired for raising concerns. The complaint seeks class action status against WeWork, alleging a pattern of discrimination against women at the office-sharing company. The case comes as WeWork is striving to regain the confidence of its employees, investors and customers in the wake of a failed attempt to enter the stock market. Medina Bardhi filed the complaint Thursday with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She was Neumann's chief of staff until she was fired on Oct. 2., shortly before Neumann was pushed out as CEO. WeWork spokeswoman Gwen Rocco said the company will "vigorously defend itself against this claim."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/weworks-ceo-faces-pregnancy-discrimination-complaint-66673781

Thu, 31 Oct 2019 16:42:10 -0400

society

discrimination

abcnews--2019-11-09--MLK daughter slams Comcast over racial discrimination suit

abcnews

MLK daughter slams Comcast over racial discrimination suit

A daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has sent a letter to Comcast executives in which she accuses the company of trying to "dismantle" a law barring racial discrimination. The letter released Saturday from the Rev. Bernice King addresses a $20 billion lawsuit from comedian and media mogul Byron Allen that is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court . Justices are scheduled to hear arguments in the case Wednesday. A lower court ruled in favor of Allen, who says Comcast declined to distribute his channels because he's black. Justices are weighing whether Allen needs to show that race was just a factor in Comcast's decision or whether it was the sole factor. If Comcast wins, the bar will be high to bring and succeed with similar suits. King says if Comcast wins, "pivotal" anti-discrimination legislation could be compromised. "Are you prepared to say business decisions based on racism are acceptable if combined with other non-racist reasons?" King wrote to Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. Comcast has said its decision not to carry Allen's channels has nothing to do with race. It has called Allen's content "not particularly high quality." "We have been forced to appeal this decision to defend against a meritless $20 billion claim, but have kept our argument narrowly focused," a Comcast spokesperson said in response to King's letter. "This case cannot detract from Comcast's strong civil rights and diversity record or our outstanding record of supporting and fostering diverse programming from African-American owned channels. There has been no finding of discriminatory conduct by Comcast against this plaintiff by any court, and there has been none."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mlk-daughter-slams-comcast-racial-discrimination-suit-66882106

Sat, 09 Nov 2019 20:01:54 -0500

society

discrimination

abcnews--2019-11-14--Mo’Nique sues Netflix for discrimination in show offer

abcnews

Mo’Nique sues Netflix for discrimination in show offer

Mo’Nique sued Netflix on Thursday for race and sex discrimination in its offer for a proposed comedy special, accusing the streaming service of giving her a lowball offer that was part of a larger company tendency to underpay black women. The comedian and Oscar-winning actress says Netflix officials were effusive in their praise of her work before they offered her $500,000 in early 2018 for a comedy special and refused to negotiate further. The suit says that stands in contrast to deals reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars for comedy specials from Chris Rock, Ellen DeGeneres, Dave Chapelle and Ricky Gervais, and that the streaming service was willing to negotiate with other comics. She called for a boycott of Netflix a week after the deal fell through in January 2018 and has been publicly critical of the company since. "We care deeply about inclusion, equity, and diversity and take any accusations of discrimination very seriously,” the statement said. “We believe our opening offer to Mo'Nique was fair — which is why we will be fighting this lawsuit.” The suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court alleges Netflix violated California’s fair employment and civil rights laws and is representative of the major pay inequity in all employment for black women. “I had a choice to make,” Mo’Nique said in a post on her Instagram account after the suit was filed. “I could accept what I felt was pay discrimination or I could stand up for those who came before me and those who will come after me. I chose to stand up.” The suit claims Netflix has a corporate culture that tolerates racial insensitivity and impropriety, lacks diversity and underpays women and minorities. It cites the revelation last year that actor Matt Smith was paid more for his supporting role on Netflix’s “The Crown” than actress Claire Foy was paid to play the title role. And it alleges that Netflix’s refusal to deal with Mo’Nique, shutting her out of what has become an essential home for comedy specials, amounts to retaliation. The 51-year-old whose real name is Monique Angela Hicks first gained fame as one of stand-up’s Queens of Comedy, and starred in the UPN series “The Parkers.” She won an Academy Award for best supporting actress for her performance in the 2009 film, “Precious.”

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/monique-sues-netflix-discrimination-show-offer-67021441

Thu, 14 Nov 2019 18:22:44 -0500

society

discrimination

bbc--2019-02-19--New York City bans hair discrimination to fight racism

bbc

New York City bans hair discrimination to fight racism

The New York City Commission on Human Rights has released guidelines against targeting people on the basis of their hairstyle, classing this as racist discrimination. The guidelines aim to protect the rights of New Yorkers in schools, work places and public places, where black people are disproportionately affected by policies banning hairstyles such as afros, cornrows and locs. A report from the commission said black hairstyles are often deemed "unprofessional" and by limiting how workers and students wear their hair, organisations "perpetuate racist stereotypes". NYC Human Rights Commissioner Chair Carmelyn P Malalis said hairstyle policies were not about professionalism but rather a way of "limiting the way black people move through workplaces, public spaces and other settings". She said the guidelines will help organisations "understand that black New Yorkers have the right to wear their hair however they choose without fear of stigma or retaliation". Brittny Saunders and Demoya Gordon were both part of the team at the commission writing the guidelines and could offer personal experiences of hair discrimination. "When I started work, I chemically straightened my hair because I understood that the expectation would be that I would present myself with straight hair," said Ms Saunders. "It would be against expectations to have natural hair." "You police yourself accordingly," agreed Ms Gordon. "When I started going to interviews at law firms I knew that there would already be a lot of scepticism about my place as a black woman in that space and that wearing my locs down would not be considered 'professional'. "It was almost 6 years into my career that I stopped pinning my locs up and started wearing them down most of the time. "It was only when I moved from working in a law firm to a non-profit organisation that I felt able to do this and even then I would still wear it up when I had to go to court or take a deposition." Businesses found to have flouted the guidelines could face fines of up to $250,000 (£191,000). But this is not a problem specific to New York. One woman from London, who preferred not to be named, said she was once sent home from working in a clothes shop because she wore her hair in braids. She was 18 at the time. "They said: 'Go home, take those braids out of your hair- this is not our look.' But the hairstyle they did want was a straight hair weave, which is not natural. They wanted me to adhere to European standards of beauty," she said. Now aged 26, she said that at the time she did not question her managers because she did not feel she could. "I wish someone would," she added. Now working in a more relaxed workplace, she wears her hair in an afro, but has black female friends who wear a "work wig" in an attempt to "fit in, to cause less tension for themselves". A 23-year-old from the UK said her school which was majority white, banned "extreme" hairstyles. "I wasn't sure what that meant, but it meant cornrows. They said they were gang affiliated," she said. Afros were also banned, described as "distracting". "I relaxed my hair when I was 13 because when it was straight they didn't mind," she added. Commissioner Malalis emphasised the importance of the guidelines in schools. "It's so important for young people to themselves and to be valued for who they are," she said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47296781

2019-02-19 18:55:22+00:00

society

discrimination

bbc--2019-03-01--Uber drivers claim discrimination over London congestion plan

bbc

Uber drivers claim discrimination over London congestion plan

Private hire drivers are taking legal action against London Mayor Sadiq Khan over the congestion charge. The group, which includes Uber drivers, says the charge is discriminatory as 94% of them are from black, Asian and other minority ethnic backgrounds. The mayor's office says it is not prepared to ignore the damaging impact the rise in private hire vehicles is having on congestion and air pollution. From 8 April, private hire vehicle drivers will have to pay the £11.50 daily congestion charge to drive in central London, under rules introduced by the mayor. Uber driver Abdurzak Hadi says that as he drives in central London from Monday to Friday, he will be almost £60 a week worse off. "I will be punished for coming to work. This is a tax on poor drivers," says Mr Hadi. Most drivers, such as those working for Uber, will have to pay the charge themselves and cannot pass it on to passengers, because it is the company that sets the rates for fares. London has roughly 114,000 private hire (PHV) drivers, who are overwhelmingly from black, Asian and other minority ethnic backgrounds, and this is what has led to a legal challenge. The percentage figure comes from a report to the mayor entitled "Changes to the Congestion Charge", which followed a consultation which Transport for London says received 10,000 responses. The report says: "As the majority of PHV drivers (about 94%) are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds (BAME) and many are from deprived areas, there is a disproportionate impact on these groups." However, it assesses the impact as being "minor adverse". The report also includes analysis showing that a majority of black cab drivers are white British. The Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which represents private hire drivers, is seeking a judicial review of the mayor's decision on the basis that it indirectly discriminates against BAME PHV drivers. On Friday, the union began that process by writing a pre-action letter to the mayor. Indirect discrimination is covered by the Equality Act 2010. It occurs where there is a practice, policy or rule that is applied generally to a large group but a sub group that possess a particular 'protected' characteristic ends up being treated less favourably. Those characteristics include race, age, disability, sex or sexual orientation, religion or belief, gender reassignment, maternity and pregnancy, marriage or civil partnership. IWGB general secretary Dr Jason Moyer-Lee calls the plan "regressive" and "both discriminatory and fundamentally unfair". "We would urge the mayor to adopt one of the many alternative policies which would actually address congestion, instead of just penalising low-paid ethnic minority workers," says Dr Moyer-Lee. He argues that if the minimum wage was paid to all private hire drivers, companies would control the number of drivers because they would not want cars circulating without paying passengers. TfL figures show licensed private hire drivers in the capital have almost doubled in less than a decade, from 59,000 in 2009-10 to 114,000 in 2017-18, while black cab drivers have fallen from 25,000 to just under 24,000. Last summer, New York capped its total number of private hire vehicles, and London's mayor is pressing ministers to give him similar powers to control their numbers in the city. The government has lost a number of legal challenges by environmental group ClientEarth over harmful levels of air pollution, and councils are under pressure to address the problem, with Birmingham and Manchester looking at imposing congestion charges. In a statement, the mayor's office said: "The number of private hire vehicles entering the congestion charge zone has shot up from 4,000 a day in 2003, when it first came into operation, to more than 18,000 now. "Sadiq simply isn't prepared to ignore the damaging impact this has on congestion and increasing air pollution. "Congestion has a crippling impact on businesses across the capital. "At the same time, our toxic air in London is a major public health crisis that is stunting the lung development of our children, leading to thousands of premature deaths, and increases the risk of asthma and dementia. "Removing the congestion charge exemption for private hire vehicles is a key part of our plans to both reduce congestion and to protect Londoners from harmful emissions from polluting vehicles." However, the mayor's own assessment says overall traffic will only be reduced by 1%, whereas private hire traffic will be reduced by 6%. Dr Moyer-Lee says this shows "the biggest change envisaged by the mayor is not a real reduction in overall traffic but rather a shift away from minicabs to other vehicles". The mayor's office points out that only around a third of PHV drivers enter the congestion charge zone, so the majority will not be affected by the changes. It assesses the annual cost of congestion in London at around £5.5bn and predicts that, without action, by 2041 it could take more than an hour to travel 10km by road in central London, 15 minutes longer than today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47360402

2019-03-01 05:06:07+00:00

society

discrimination

bbc--2019-03-15--Irish PM Leo Varadkar anti-discrimination message

bbc

Irish PM Leo Varadkar anti-discrimination message

Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar has delivered a strong message of anti-discrimination on his visit to the US. Varadkar highlighted various forms of intolerance, in a speech hosted by Vice President Mike Pence. His words carried particular significance as Pence has a history of anti-LGBT policies during his time in office.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-47575449

2019-03-15 00:11:30+00:00

society

discrimination

bbc--2019-04-22--Supreme Court to hear LGBT workplace discrimination cases

bbc

Supreme Court to hear LGBT workplace discrimination cases

The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear three cases that ask if existing US job discrimination laws should extend to sexual orientation and gender identity. Two of the cases involve alleged discrimination of gay men by their employers, and the third examines the discrimination of a transgender person. The cases will signal the direction of LGBT rights in the US, four years after gay marriage was legalised nationwide. The 5-4 conservative-majority court is set to examine the cases this fall. The first two cases have been consolidated as both address the purported discrimination of gay employees. Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor from New York, and Gerald Bostock, a former county child welfare services coordinator from Georgia, both alleged they were fired because of their sexual orientation. The top court will also examine the Michigan case of funeral home employee Aimee Stephens, who claims she was fired because she is transgender. In its listing of the cases, the Supreme Court cites Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the section that prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex and national origin. But it does not explicitly reference sexual orientation or gender identity, and lower courts have been divided in recent years on whether the protections should apply to either category. The US Justice Department under President Donald Trump has supported the employers in each case, arguing that existing federal civil rights protections do not extend to sexual orientation or gender identity. This marks a change in course from the Obama administration, which supported treating LGBT discrimination as sex discrimination. Some advocates for LGBT equality celebrated the opportunity for workplace protections to be cemented in law. "The Supreme Court has an opportunity to clarify this area of law to ensure protections for LGBTQ people in many important areas of life", said Sarah Warbelow, Human Rights Campaign legal director, in a statement. "The growing legal consensus is that our nation's civil rights laws do protect LGBTQ people against discrimination under sex nondiscrimination laws." In her statement Ms Warbelow urged Congress to pass protections for LGBT employees, "regardless" of the court's decision. In 2017, the Supreme Court chose not examine a case involving a lesbian working as a hospital security officer in Georgia, leaving a lower court ruling in place which sided with the woman's employer.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48017275

2019-04-22 22:26:29+00:00

society

discrimination

bbc--2019-06-02--Pope Francis apologises to Roma for Catholic discrimination

bbc

Pope Francis apologises to Roma for Catholic discrimination

Pope Francis has apologised to the Roma people on behalf of the Catholic Church during his visit to Romania. At a meeting with Roma people on the last day of his visit to the country, the pontiff asked forgiveness for "all those times in history when we have discriminated, mistreated or looked askance at you". Roma people have faced persecution in Europe for centuries. Hundreds of thousands are thought to have been killed during the Holocaust. Nowadays Roma live mainly in southern and central Europe, and make up an estimated 8% of Romania's total population. They complain they struggle to get work because of discrimination, and many live in poverty. "I ask forgiveness - in the name of the Church and of the Lord - and I ask forgiveness of you," Pope Francis said in the central town of Blaj. "Indifference breeds prejudices and fosters anger and resentment," the pontiff said. "How many times do we judge rashly, with words that sting, with attitudes that sow hatred and division!" "This is a historic moment for me and my people," Damian Draghici, a Roma MEP for Romania, told the BBC. "I hope this message will change people's attitude and stereotypes against our people." The meeting with the Roma came after a ceremony in Blaj at which Pope Francis beatified seven bishops who were jailed and tortured during Communist rule in Romania. Authorities detained the men in 1948 for treason after they refused to convert to Orthodox Christianity. All seven died in confinement and were buried in secret. "With great courage and interior fortitude, they accepted harsh imprisonment and every kind of mistreatment, in order not to deny their fidelity to their beloved Church," Pope Francis told tens of thousands of worshippers at the open-air Mass on Sunday. Beatification - a papal "blessing" on a dead person" - is a crucial step on the way to sainthood. The seven bishops were part of the Eastern Catholic church - a religious group that practises Orthodox Christian rituals but recognise the Pope's authority. When a Communist regime took power in Romania following the end of World War II, the authorities outlawed Eastern Catholicism and demanded worshippers convert to Orthodoxy. According to 2011 census data, only about 150,000 Eastern Catholics remain in Romania - roughly one 10th of the number that followed the church in 1948. Historians believe thousands of Romanians were executed by Communist authorities, with many more imprisoned or tortured for opposing the regime. The totalitarian government collapsed in December 1989. President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife were executed on Christmas Day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48490942

2019-06-02 19:12:02+00:00

society

discrimination

bbc--2019-06-28--California set to be first US state to ban hair discrimination

bbc

California set to be first US state to ban hair discrimination

California is set to become the first US state to ban discrimination against natural hair. The new bill, which the Senate passed in April, amends anti-discrimination laws to include "traits historically associated with race" and "blackness". It bars discrimination against black hairstyles in schools and workplaces. California's assembly voted unanimously in favour of the measure on Thursday, sending it to Governor Gavin Newsom's desk for signing into law. The update to the law comes after years of nationwide reports of black students being sent home from school over braids or natural styles that violated dress code rules. In the workplace, black employees have often reported unfair policies that describe natural hair as unhygienic and unprofessional. The US military had a ban on dreadlocks for women until 2017. "Professionalism was, and still is, closely linked to European features and mannerisms, which entails that those who do not naturally fall into Eurocentric norms must alter their appearances, sometimes drastically and permanently, in order to be deemed professional," the California bill states. "Hair remains a rampant source of racial discrimination with serious economic and health consequences, especially for black individuals." The bill has been referred to as the Crown (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair) Act and was sponsored by Democratic Senator Holly Mitchell, who is black. It passed 69-0 and notes that while afros are protected federally by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, black individuals are unfairly affected - deterred, burdened or punished - by dress code policies targeting "braids, twists and locks". New York City enacted a similar anti-discrimination policy in February. The city's Human Rights Law now protects "natural hair or hairstyles that are closely associated with their racial, ethnic or cultural identities". Black hair has been controlled and policed for centuries - during the 1700s in Louisiana, women of colour, whether they were enslaved or not, were ordered to cover their hair with scarves. For decades in the US, black women have used sometimes dangerous or damaging chemical methods to straighten their natural hair. These harsh treatments could permanently damage hair, cause it to fall out, or burn the scalp. California's measure, which is expected to be signed into law by the governor, has been praised on social media. But some supporters have also pointed out that no other hair texture has needed legislation to prevent discrimination.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48803857

2019-06-28 15:26:49+00:00

society

discrimination

chicagotribune--2019-11-15--Meghan and Harry are skipping the family holidays. Maybe you should try it too.

chicagotribune

Meghan and Harry are skipping the family holidays. Maybe you should try it too.

Invest in your marriage: A lot goes into planning the holidays when you become parents, but LaFreniere says the bottom line remains the same: Don’t forget about your partner. “A new baby is already going to take a lot of time and a lot of attention away from your spouse,” she says. “So it’s going to be even more important to make sure that you’re not losing sight of your spouse, especially when you are around extended family and others at the holidays.” Make sure that you know what to do to make your partner feel loved and supported, LaFreniere says — and that doesn’t just mean taking on your share of baby duties. “Changing a diaper might be really helpful,” she says, “but your spouse might not feel really loved by that. Maybe writing a little note or saying some encouraging words are what makes your spouse feel loved. A little bit of encouragement can go a long way.”

Cindy Dampier

http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-life-meghan-harry-new-baby-holiday-tt-20191115-pe3udmnjp5dsnpdyavfihvbedq-story.html

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 09:30:10 PST

society

family

thedailymirror--2019-11-19--Family holidays have a long-term effect on kids' happiness says child psychologist

thedailymirror

Family holidays have a long-term effect on kids' happiness says child psychologist

Going on a family holiday could have a long-lasting impact on children's happiness, according to a child psychologist. While the act of going on holiday is exciting, it's spending that quality time with their parents which children value the most. As mums and dads can leave responsibilities such as work behind, while kids escape the stresses of school, it can make for a longer period of playfulness for both sides - and this is what the children value the most. Child psychologist and author Oliver James told the Telegraph : "The exam system that we put children through these days can be incredibly stressful, just as much so as the strains of adult life. "Holidays remove us, physically, from our highly pressured everyday lives where everyone’s focused on meeting targets. They are times when everyone can relax and be playful together." The benefit of the holiday is also that while the kids can enjoy it all in the moment, the trip remains in their memory long after you've come back home. That doesn't mean you need to be splashing the cash on heaps of holidays every year - let's be honest, this isn't financially feasible. The benefits come from spending that quality time together, whether that's sharing an ice cream together, taking a dip in the sea, or simply having a fun day out exploring on a walk. You don't need to be jet-setting off to sunnier climates; a mini trip to the UK's best family-friendly destinations can be just the thing. (Of course if you do want to go abroad you may want to check out our holiday deals round-up which we regularly update with the latest travel offers we think you'll love). It's not the first time that travel has been linked to happiness. A recent scientific study found that girls' holidays can be a key factor to happiness for women. Similar to Oliver's argument about family holidays, the benefits of the girls' getaways come from the quality time it offers for friends, who may not usually be able to get as much time together due to the stresses of daily life.

mirrornews@mirror.co.uk (Julie Delahaye)

https://www.mirror.co.uk/travel/news/family-holidays-can-long-term-20913474

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 11:47:39 +0000

society

family

theindependent--2019-03-21--Family holidays during term time help push unauthorised school absences to record high

theindependent

Family holidays during term time help push unauthorised school absences to record high

Unauthorised pupil absences have soared to a record high thanks to parents taking children out of school for term-time holidays – despite a sharp rise in the number of families hit with fines. More than one in six pupils (17.6 per cent) missed at least half a day of lessons in 2017-18 for a holiday, up from 16.9 per cent the previous year, Department for Education (DfE) statistics show. That helped push the unauthorised absence rate in all schools in England to 1.4 per cent, its highest since records began. Term-time holidays taken without permission have been increasing over the past decade, as parents defy the threat of fines to avoid higher prices for travel and accommodation during school breaks. The number of penalty notices issued last year jumped 75 per cent, from 149,300 to 260,877, with family holidays the most common reason behind their issue. The figures come after father Jon Platt lost a high-profile case at the Supreme Court in April 2017 over taking his daughter to Disney World, Florida, during term time without permission. He had initially won a High Court case in May 2016, and previous figures suggest many parents decided to take term-time holidays on the basis of the ruling. The DfE data also suggests rising truancy has contributed to the increased unauthorised absence rate, as more than half of all unauthorised absences are as a result of persistent absentees. One in nine pupils (11.2 per cent) are classified as persistently absent – where they miss 10 per cent of more of their possible teaching sessions – compared to 10.8 per cent the year before. Ahead of the figures being published, education secretary Damian Hinds defended the school exclusions system and suggested truancy had a more explicit link to knife crime. He said a “much bigger concern” than expulsions are those who are “persistently absent”, which includes pupils who skip school or are off sick long term. His comments come after London mayor Sadiq Khan and police and crime commissioners wrote to the prime minister warning that a “broken” school exclusion system was contributing to the issue. Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said requests for time off during term time could only be authorised in exceptional circumstances. But he added: “However, the system of fines is clearly too blunt an instrument and in many cases it drives a wedge between schools and families. “The real problem is holiday pricing. Neither parents nor schools set the prices of holidays.” Cllr Anntoinette Bramble, chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, said: “Ensuring every child has a good school attendance is of paramount concern for everyone working with children, including councils. “Parents and carers have a legal responsibility to make sure children attend school regularly while schools will monitor attendance and raise any concerns with councils. “If required, councils will support headteachers to take any action they feel necessary to address any issues with pupil attendance, including fining parents for unauthorised absences.” A DfE spokesperson said: “The education secretary has made clear, persistent absence from school is a society-wide challenge that we all need to work together to resolve – and while significant progress has been made, today’s data shows that has now plateaued. “High-quality education and pastoral care will make a real difference to children’s life chances, and that’s particularly important for those who are most vulnerable, but clearly key initiatives will only work if children are present. “That’s why the rules on term-time absences are clear: no child should be taken out of school without good reason. We have put headteachers back in control by supporting them – and local authorities – to use their powers to deal with unauthorised absence.” We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.

Eleanor Busby

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/parents-pupil-absences-school-term-time-holiday-fine-a8833646.html

2019-03-21 15:52:00+00:00

society

family

thetelegraph--2019-01-08--The family holidays your children need have companionship not Instagrammable moments

thetelegraph

The family holidays your children need have companionship, not Instagrammable moments

My first clear summer memory is of a rainy beach in Cornwall sometime in the Seventies. I recall building a helter-skelter of sand with my mother and rolling a rubber ball down it repeatedly. I think I was five. This means that between that moment and the official onset of adulthood, there were only a baker’s dozen of summers: 13 formative seasons to provide a bedrock of memories for one entire life. It’s not much, really. Especially not when you consider how quickly you’re changing in that period. Each childhood summer holiday contains milestones: the first time you ventured out of your depth in the sea, or opened your eyes under water, the first jellyfish sting, the first long bicycle ride, the first fizzy drink. There are also more idiosyncratic landmarks: the first Punch and Judy show, the first encounter with black pudding at a hotel breakfast. And, of course, there are first crushes, first kisses, first loves. There’s a reason that summer holidays crop up time and again in fiction and cinema. It’s in their spacious weeks that you begin to experience your own life turning from potential into reality. Now, as a parent, I find it hard to look at photographs of my children on summer holidays without a lump in my throat. The beach towels and T-shirts I recognise in the pictures are still folded away in some drawer awaiting sunny weather. But the children – vulnerable, impossibly tiny, water-winged and sun-creamed – have transformed. Now they’re strapping, independent and starting to chafe at the limitations of childhood. The bulk of my childhood holidays were spent in the United States, in Massachusetts, where my dad was from and most of his family lived. My mum worked at the BBC and so my brother and I found ourselves alone for quite a lot of the time each summer. My brother and I watched Wheel of Fortune on a black and white telly, nursed futile crushes on girls, visited the beach (cold, pebbly), cycled to the library, went on camping expeditions and came back itchy with poison ivy. We swam, read a lot, and longed to have more freedom. I’ve returned with my own children to the beaches I knew as a child and have been amazed mainly that the vast creeks I remember have shrunk to tiny streams, the huge distances between landmarks are now a mere Frisbee-throw apart. Brobdingnag has become Lilliput. Those summers taught me independence and the uses of boredom. In retrospect, I see that key parts of a summer holiday are those valuable longueurs, the hours spent sitting around chatting in a friend’s bedroom, playing football in the park, trying to pluck up courage to talk to someone you fancy. These are the moments when you think you’re waiting for life to start, but which you look back and realise were life itself. And when I was old enough, unglamorous summer jobs – carrying furniture, peeling potatoes – gave me a glimpse of the qualities – turning up, being conscientious – that life mainly requires of you. In those years, parents felt less obliged to provide their offspring with life-changing experiences. Summer was a time without school or childcare that just needed to be got through. Social media hadn’t arrived to give parents a nagging sense that every other parent was doing a better job of it. No one expected to return to school in September having visited Antarctica, speaking Mandarin or with a brown belt in ju-jitsu. Some children went abroad with their families, more of them moped around the city in record shops and arcades. Few and fortunate still are the parents who can afford to take six weeks off work for summer and spend it with their children. Juggling work and childcare, calling in favours from grandparents, parking children at friends’ houses – isn’t that how most of us manage? But it does feel important to have some kind of joint adventure together over those precious weeks. Our best summer holidays as a family have had an element of unpredictability. Some have been road trips: one across Iceland, while we listened to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and looked at the other-worldly terrain beyond the windows.   Last summer, we drove to Quebec – my ancestral province – through northern New England, staying in cabins and swimming in the region’s deep glacial lakes. We took a punt on the Skowhegan State Fair in Maine. In a land of hyperbole, its claim to specialness was intriguingly hedged with qualifications: “the nation’s oldest, consecutively running agricultural fair”. I heartily recommend it as a strange, eye-opening slice of old Americana. Above all, we’ve had huge fun on cycling holidays together. I love cycling with my children, not because I love cycling – I own the world’s heaviest bike and no Lycra – but because we’re all in it together. Two years ago, the four of us spent a week cycling through the archipelago of little islands around Turku in Finland. It followed a very happy holiday cycling along the Danube and it suffered initially by comparison. The islands were surprisingly steep, the opportunities for refreshment far apart, and there was little strudel. Looking back, that holiday provided us with more collective memories than any other: the doll’s house of a shared cabin at a campsite in which we barely fitted; the panicky cycles to catch departing ferries; the fresh cinnamon rolls whose aroma perfumed the waterfront at Nagu; evenings playing the card game Love Letters. It didn’t have Instagrammable moments, but it was full of companionship. The bucket lists of life-changing summer moments don’t include Skowhegan or even Turku. Wet Cornish beaches are unlikely to feature. We’re urged to make it to the Galapagos, to the Maasai Mara, to Santorini for the sunset, to Angkor Wat at dawn – and fine they are, I’m sure. But the time is very brief, money may be short, and when it comes down to it, perhaps there is not much more that’s necessary for a memorable summer than being able to roll a rubber ball down a sandcastle on a beach, eat fish and chips, and play Bananagrams with someone you love.

Marcel Theroux

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/family-holidays/childhood-holidays-seaside/

2019-01-08 09:16:44+00:00

society

family

sputnik--2019-11-22--Video: Man Fires Shots into Street From Assault Rifle Over Family Conflict in Russia's Koltushi

sputnik

Video: Man Fires Shots into Street From Assault Rifle Over Family Conflict in Russia's Koltushi

The video depicting the incident shows a couple of obscure silhouettes allegedly grappling on the balcony of an apartment block. The quality of the footage makes it impossible to identify the exact type of weapon used by the individual. Local media said that police have responded to the incident. There has been no information on damage or casualties. The shooter reportedly opened fire after a family squabble.

https://sputniknews.com/russia/201911221077372432-video-man-fires-shots-at-street-in-russias-koltushi-from-assault-rifle-over-family-conflict/

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 05:29:25 +0300

society

family

bbcuk--2019-01-15--Family bids to get premature baby home to Wales from Vietnam

bbcuk

Family bids to get premature baby home to Wales from Vietnam

A couple is trying to get their baby back to Wales from Vietnam after she was born almost three months early. Jessica Jones and Alfredo Duenas's daughter Aurelia was born by emergency Caesarean section in Hanoi in October. Aurelia, who weighed 2lb 1oz (970g), could not breathe unaided, has under-developed organs and a heart defect. Ms Jones, 36, from Borth-y-Gest, Gwynedd, said she spent the first few months of her daughter's life "thinking she was going to die". She works as a teacher in Vietnam, where she has been living with her Mexican husband for a year and a half. Ms Jones's waters broke at 05:00 on 10 October and she had Aurelia by 11:00 at just 27 weeks. She said doctors told her there was a 5% chance her baby would survive if she had a Caesarean section and 2% or 3% if she had a natural birth. Among her other health problems, Aurelia also has retinopathy of prematurity - which can lead to blindness - and needs reconstructive surgery on her nose after her septum was eroded by tubes providing air. She spent spent two-and-a-half months in hospital before being discharged on Christmas Eve. "To be told I was in labour and giving me a 5% chance of survival was one of the hardest things to hear," she said. The couple had to use translators - and their phones - to communicate with doctors and nurses, but even with interpreters, they were left struggling to understand what was happening to their daughter. "There aren't any words that can really do justice to the amount of trauma we've gone through - thinking your baby is going to die for the first three months and looking at them through a plastic box," Ms Jones said. The couple are now trying to raise £15,000 to get Aurelia back to the UK so she can have the best possible care. Ms Jones said Aurelia needed to have surgery on her nose done now to prevent further damage and to give surgeons in the future the best chance of reconstructing her septum. "Working on premature babies and such small craniofacial surgery of that magnitude is incredibly specialised and that just makes you appreciate so much what the NHS does and offers," she said. "The care and treatment that babies and children receive is second to none, and unfortunately living here it means she is suffering and is not able to have access to a higher standard of treatment." She added: "She needs extra help and care and unfortunately it isn't here for her." Money will go towards flying her home - due to her poor immune system, they have been advised to fly business class rather than economy in order to avoid the large number of people in a small space. Ms Jones said: "It's been the only thing keeping me going is the thought of being able to go home, have some support from family and friends and the NHS. "I cannot describe how much I'm counting the seconds until we can get her on that plane." It will also fund the cost of getting to and from hospital when they are back in Wales, as well as the fact they will not be able to work while caring for Aurelia. They have so far raised more than £9,000 in donations from people across the world. "Words fail us - the kindness of strangers has been overwhelming - everybody has been blown away, it's been amazing," Ms Jones added.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-46866611

2019-01-15 10:08:37+00:00

society

family

theblaze--2019-04-04--A perfect match Nurse who always wanted a family adopts baby who never got visitors at hospital

theblaze

A perfect match: Nurse who always wanted a family adopts baby who never got visitors at hospital

A perfect match: Nurse who always wanted a family adopts baby who never got visitors at hospital

Mike Ciandella

https://www.theblaze.com/news/nurse-adopts-baby-who-had-no-visitors

2019-04-04 17:24:08+00:00

society

family

theblaze--2019-11-12--Texas family wins ruling to keep baby on life support the same day the hospital was planning to stop

theblaze

Texas family wins ruling to keep baby on life support the same day the hospital was planning to stop treatment

Texas family wins ruling to keep baby on life support the same day the hospital was planning to stop treatment

Phil Shiver

https://www.theblaze.com/news/texas-family-baby-on-life-support

Tue, 12 Nov 2019 22:10:18 +0000

society

family

thedailymirror--2019-11-01--Britain's biggest family The Radfords reveal their 22nd baby will be a girl

thedailymirror

Britain's biggest family The Radfords reveal their 22nd baby will be a girl

Britain's biggest family is poised to grow even bigger - with a Lancashire couple announcing they are expecting their 22nd child. Sue and Noel Radford have announced they are expecting a girl - meaning they will have 11 girls and 11 boys. Sue, 44, told The Sun she can't wait to give birth again. She said: "Most people have one of each sex and stop there. "It is perfect to have an exact balance of boys to girls so we have 11 to 11. "I can't wait to go shopping for lovely pink clothes for her now." Sue and Noel, who run a bakery in Morcambe, live in a 10 bedroom, four storey house which used to be a care home. Sue - who was 14 when first child Chris was born - said after their last daughter, Bonnie, was born, they were not expecting any more. She said their children were so excited that they decided to find out the gender of the unborn child rather than keep it a surprise. They are parents to Chris, aged 30, Sophie, 26, Chloe, 24, Jack, 23, Daniel, 21, Luke, 19, Millie, 18, Katie, 16, James, 15, Ellie, 13, Aimee, 13, Josh, 12, Max, 10, Tillie, eight, Oscar, seven, Casper, six, Hallie, four, Phoebe, three, and Archie, two, and Bonnie, one. Their new arrival is due in April next year. The Radfords first found fame in 2012 when their lives were the focus of a Channel 4 documentary called 15 Kids and Counting. Baby Bonnie was the last addition to the brood in November bringing the number of children to a whopping 21. She arrived after a swift 12 minute labour weighing 8lb 4oz - and the couple, who have been having children for three decades, vowed she would be their last and had completed their family. Sue and Noel run their own pie business and do not claim extra state benefits. Some of the oldest offspring have since moved out and started families of their own with Sue and Noel being grandparents to four. And when the entire family appeared on ITV's This Morning in January 2018, Sue said: "Archie is definitely going to be the last Radford baby." But eldest daughter Sophie, who has three kids herself, shook her head and claimed she "can't see her mum stopping" - and she wasn't wrong as months later Sue fell pregnant with Bonnie. Childhood sweethearts Sue and Noel's first child, Chris, was born when Sue was aged just 14. The parents were both given up for adoption after they were born, and they decided to keep Chris and raise him as teenage parents. They got married and had their second child, Sophie, when Sue was 17. Noel even had a vasectomy, later reversed, after baby number nine. The pair face a monumental task each day just to feed, clothe and ferry about their huge brood. They spend an estimated £30,000 a year of their own money bringing up their children - including birthdays with a reported budget of £100 per child and Christmas at £100 to £250 per child. In addition, they also have a holiday abroad each year. And as we previously revealed, the family keep their home immaculate - as they proved in a house tour of their 'gorgeous' home.

mirrornews@mirror.co.uk (Amber Hicks, Dave Burke)

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/britains-biggest-family-reveal-22nd-20791756

Fri, 1 Nov 2019 20:42:16 +0000

society

family

thedailymirror--2019-12-24--Family left heartbroken after baby boy dies five days before Christmas

thedailymirror

Family left heartbroken after baby boy dies five days before Christmas

A family have been left heartbroken following the death of their little baby boy who died just days before Christmas. Mum Sammy Marson and dad Darran Gregory, both 22, have been left seeking answers after nine-month-old Devon Marson-Gregory died on Friday, December 20. Devon had been brain damaged from birth and was being treated at Nottingham City Hospital and Boston Pilgrim Hospital for ongoing conditions since then. Last Thursday, Sammy, from Swineshead, near Boston, rang the doctor after noticing Devon's hands and feet had become very cold, Lincolnshire Live reports. She spoke to a doctor at Pilgrim Hospital where she says Devon was refused a bed despite an 'open bed' care plan being in place on the children's ward. She said she was told to call 111 instead. Sammy then took Devon to see a doctor at Swineshead Medical Practice at about 5.30pm who advised her to give him Calpol and take him home. Just a few hours later, at 12.15am, Devon stopped breathing. Sammy performed CPR and paramedics attended and also gave resuscitation but despite all their efforts, Devon died at Pilgrim Hospital in the early hours of the morning. Sammy, who also has a two-year-old son called Roman, said: "We could not grieve for Devon because we had police officers in the room with at the hospital. "Even the police were asking themselves why they were there. "We are absolutely devastated to lose Devon - we want to remember him as our little fighter. "We want to know why the care plan was not followed. The coroner is due to investigate the circumstances surrounding Devon's death. The GP surgery has declined to comment. Penny Snowden, divisional head of nursing and midwifery for family health at United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust, said: “We would like to offer our condolences to Devon’s family. "We are unable to comment on individual cases, however, we would advise the family to get in touch when they are ready so that we can answer any concerns or questions they may have.” A spokesman for the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust said: "It would be inappropriate to comment ahead of the inquest.” A Go Fund Me appeal has been launched to support the family.

mirrornews@mirror.co.uk (Paul Whitelam)

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/family-left-heartbroken-after-baby-21157097

Tue, 24 Dec 2019 11:03:52 +0000

society

family

bbc--2019-01-07--World Anti-Doping Agency to gain access to Russian laboratory nine days after deadline

bbc

World Anti-Doping Agency to gain access to Russian laboratory nine days after deadline

A World Anti-Doping Agency team will access the Russian Anti-Doping Agency's laboratory in Moscow on Wednesday, nine days after an initial deadline. Wada's inspection team were denied full access to data after Rusada was set a 31 December deadline to comply. A three-year Wada suspension of Russian athletes was ended in September. Wada president Sir Craig Reedie says access "will break a long impasse and will potentially lead to many cases being actioned". Russia's failure to provide full access to the laboratory and data led to 16 national anti-doping bodies (Nados) and Wada's athlete committee to call for the country to be suspended. The issue will be debated when Wada's compliance review committee (CRC), an independent body, meets on 14 January, after which it will make a recommendation to Wada's executive committee (ExCo). Reedie added: "We are continuing to act on the basis of the 31 December deadline having been missed, with all the consequences that failure could bring." US Anti-Doping Agency head Travis Tygart said: "This appears to be yet another round of the cat and mouse game between Wada and Russia we have unfortunately come to expect. "We are all holding our breath as to how this one will end come 9 January and whether Wada will finally be given the data on the roughly 9,000 presumptive positive tests results on over 4,000 Russian athletes that hopefully has not already been destroyed by the Russians." A report from Professor Richard McLaren in July 2016 found Russia operated a state-sponsored doping programme for four years across the "vast majority" of Olympic sports. A subsequent report stated more than 1,000 Russian athletes benefited from doping and Russia was later banned from competing at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Wada had insisted Russia meet two criteria before Rusada could be reinstated to competition; accept the findings of the McLaren report, and grant access to Moscow's anti-doping laboratory. Monday's Wada statement said: "Access to, and subsequent authentication and analysis of, the data remains crucial in order to build strong cases against cheats and exonerate other athletes suspected of having participated in widespread doping on the basis of previous Wada-backed investigations." Wada says its five-person team in Moscow could not access the necessary data between 17 and 21 December because of an issue raised by Russian authorities "in relation to the certification of the equipment under Russian law". Wada says the issue has since been resolved by the Russian authorities. Reedie had previously said he was "bitterly disappointed" after it was confirmed Rusada had missed the deadline and that "the process agreed by Wada's ExCo in September will now be initiated".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/46786572

2019-01-07 17:29:01+00:00

sport

drug use in sport

bbc--2019-02-01--London 2012 high jump champion among 12 Russian athletes banned for doping

bbc

London 2012 high jump champion among 12 Russian athletes banned for doping

London 2012 Olympic high jump champion Ivan Ukhov is among 12 Russian track and field athletes banned for doping by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Three years of Ukhov's results, including the 2012 Olympics, have been disqualified, meaning Britain's Robert Grabarz could be upgraded to silver. Cas acted on evidence from the McLaren report, which found Russia operated a state-sponsored doping programme. The 12 athletes have 21 days to appeal against the decision. Cas says the athletes "participated in and/or benefited from anabolic steroid doping programs and benefited from specific protective methods" from London 2012 to the 2013 World Championships in Moscow. Ukhov has been banned for four years, as has 2013 high jump world champion Svetlana Shkolina, while Tatyana Lysenko, who won world gold in the hammer throw, is banned for eight years. Grabarz was one of three athletes to finish third at London 2012, a Games that has since been dubbed the dirtiest ever Olympics because of the number of failed drugs tests.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/47095072

2019-02-01 15:51:30+00:00

sport

drug use in sport

bbc--2019-03-01--Nordic skiing Blood doping scandal rocks sport as five athletes arrested

bbc

Nordic skiing: Blood doping scandal rocks sport as five athletes arrested

The skiing world is embroiled in a "blood doping" scandal - where athletes illegally inject specially altered blood back into themselves. Graphic footage has been leaked showing Austrian cross-country skier Max Hauke giving himself a blood transfusion. He was one of five athletes arrested in Seefeld, Austria, which is hosting the Nordic World Ski Championships. A police officer is also facing investigation for giving the video of Mr Hauke to the press. The arrests have sent shockwaves through the skiing world, and have happened right in the middle of one of its biggest global competitions. Here's what you need to know. Blood doping is when an athlete injects oxygenated blood into themselves in an attempt to improve their athletic performance. According to the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), dopers do it to increase their red blood cell mass, which means the body can transport more oxygen to the muscles. This, in turn, increases an athlete's stamina. The three most common substances and methods of blood doping are synthetic oxygen carriers, blood transfusions, and erythropoietin (EPO). All three are banned by Wada. EPO is a hormone that is produced naturally in the body, and it stimulates red blood cell production. Misusing it, Wada warns, "can lead to serious health risks" because it thickens the blood, leading to "an increased risk of several deadly diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, and cerebral or pulmonary embolism". Some readers may find this clip difficult to watch. In the video, Mr Hauke is seen sitting on a sofa with a police officer in the background. He is in the middle of giving himself a blood transfusion. It was reportedly filmed in the middle of one of the raids by a police officer, who later leaked it to the Norwegian broadcaster NRK. In total nine people were arrested in a series of raids on 16 properties, carried out by 120 officers from both German and Austrian police, in what has now been dubbed "Operation Bloodletting". Nine of the raided properties were in Erfurt, Germany, where officers apparently found a blood doping laboratory. One Kazakh, two Estonian and two Austrian athletes were detained. Among those was Mr Hauke, an Olympic skier who represented his country in Sochi in 2014, and fellow Austrian skier Dominik Baldauf. The two Estonian athletes - Karel Tammjärv and Andreas Veerpalu - were both released on Thursday evening, while Mr Baldauf, Mr Hauke, and Kazakh skier Alexey Poltoranin were freed earlier in the day. A 40-year-old sports doctor, named only as "Mark S", has also been arrested. He is believed to be a central figure in the doping ring. Plus, Austrian broadcaster ORF reported that the police officer who leaked the video of Mr Hauke was now being investigated as well, and could face disciplinary and criminal proceedings for giving the clip to the press. The unnamed officer was also apparently let go from his post "with immediate effect". In a press conference on Friday, Mr Tammjärv admitted that he started seeing his doping doctor back in 2016, after meeting veteran skiing coach Mati Alaver. Mr Alaver told him that if he wanted to improve his performance, there was a "doctor in Germany who makes such things possible". "I made that decision myself that I wanted to get help in the form of blood doping," Mr Tammjärv said, adding that he first withdrew blood that summer, and completed his first transfusion during the Nordic World Ski Championships in Lahti, Finland, the following year. Innsbruck regional prosecutor Hansjorg Mayr said that Mr Baldauf, Mr Hauke and Mr Poltoranin had also "admitted to using blood doping and gave comprehensive and in-depth information to investigators". Trond Nystad, the Austrian team's coach, has quit his job - with effect from the end of the championship on Sunday. He told Norwegian outlet VG that he made the decision after watching the leaked footage of Mr Hauke's blood doping, which reportedly made him feel so sick that he physically threw up. Mr Hauke and Mr Baldauf, he said, had "done something completely illegal" - and he now has "no desire to work with the Austrian ski club anymore". However, he added that he had no idea about the doping before this week: "If I had [had suspicions] I'd have reported it. I have zero tolerance for doping." Like Mr Nystad, Mr Hauke's British training partner Andrew Young said he felt physically sick watching the video. "I'm getting nauseous, it's disgusting to look at," he told NRK, adding that he too had no idea his friend and colleague was doping. "It's difficult to describe what you feel after seeing a friend cheating," he said. "I don't hate him, but at the same time, I don't want him back in the cross-country circuit. You can't come back after you've done that." Other skiers were similarly shocked by the allegations. Andrew Musgrave, a Scottish skier who had hit a personal best in Seefeld on Wednesday, said the news had overshadowed one of his "best ever classic races". And GB Snowsport's chief executive Vicky Gosling said it was "extremely disappointing", and a sign that "doping remains a serious issue in elite sport". "The athletes and staff on the cross country skiing World Cup circuit all know each other very well so today's news has been both shocking and disappointing," she said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47415803

2019-03-01 16:05:19+00:00

sport

drug use in sport

bbc--2019-07-24--Artur Taymazov stripped of London 2012 gold for doping offence

bbc

Artur Taymazov stripped of London 2012 gold for doping offence

Uzbek freestyle wrestler Artur Taymazov has become the 60th athlete and seventh gold medallist disqualified from London 2012 under a doping re-test programme. Taymazov had already lost his 2008 Olympic gold in 2016 after a positive test for an oral steroid in the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) reanalysis programme. Now a politician in Russia, his only remaining gold is from Athens 2004. The IOC re-tests samples using new techniques not available in 2012. There were nine positive tests before and during London 2012. Other athletes who originally won London 2012 golds, such as Russian racewalker Sergei Kirdyapkin, his compatriot and high jumper Ivan Ukhov and Turkish 1500m runner Asli Cakir Alptekin, were stripped of their medals after rulings by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. However, the re-testing scheme has seen a further 60 caught cheating - including 24 medallists. Samples from 2012 can be re-tested for up to eight years after the Games. The statute of limitations on doping offences was extended from eight to 10 years in 2015, but that cannot be backdated so the IOC has until next summer to announce any more positives from London 2012. "The IOC has been storing samples from the Olympic Games since Athens 2004 and has re-analysed them systematically," the governing body said after one of Taymazov's samples from London 2012 resulted in a positive test for oral steroid turinabol. "The fight against doping is a top priority for the IOC, which has established a zero-tolerance policy to combat cheating and to make anyone responsible for using or providing doping products accountable."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/49092020

2019-07-24 09:56:45+00:00

sport

drug use in sport

bbc--2019-09-02--Anti-doping case dropped against fastest man

bbc

Anti-doping case dropped against fastest man

The US Anti-Doping Agency has withdrawn its case against sprinter Christian Coleman, the fastest man in the world this year. Coleman, 23, had been charged with missing three drugs tests and was facing an automatic one-year ban. Usada said it had withdrawn the charge after receiving guidance from the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada). Coleman is now free to compete at the World Athletics Championships, beginning in Doha on 28 September. The American ran a world-leading time of 9.81 seconds in the Diamond League in California in June. Under the 'whereabouts' system, athletes must let officials know where they will be for one hour every day as well as details of overnight accommodation and training. Failure to do so - a 'filing failure' - three times in a 12-month period could lead to a rule violation under the World Anti-Doping code. Usada said clarification from Wada had been sought around the interpretation of the current International Standard for Testing and Investigations (ISTI) This concerned the date on which a failure to update an athlete's changed whereabouts information should be considered to have occurred. Usada recorded filing failures for Coleman on 6 June, 2018, 16 January, 2019 and 26 April, 2019. Two of the three tests were directed by Usada, while a third was initiated by the Athletics Integrity Unit. However, as the ISTI states that filing failures relate back to the first day of the quarter, Coleman contended that his failure to update which was discovered on 6 June, 2018, should relate back to 1 April, 2018. That is more than 12 months prior to Coleman's third filing failure on 26 April, 2019. Wada clarified this fact to Usada, resulting in the charge being withdrawn. The decision by Usada to drop the charges can still be appealed by Wada or the IAAF, athletics' governing body. If found guilty, Coleman would have faced an automatic one-year ban and would miss the World Championships and the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Coleman had denied the charge and, in a statement to former sprinter Ato Bolden for the NBC network last month, said: "I'm not a guy who takes any supplements at all, so I'm never concerned about taking drugs tests, at any time." Former Great Britain 400m Olympic champion Christine Ohuruogu received a year's ban in 2006 under the 'whereabouts' system for three missed tests. Coleman won the US National Championships in July in 9.99 seconds. He finished second at the 2017 World Championships in London behind fellow American Justin Gatlin and has a personal best of 9.79, making him the seventh fastest man in history. He also set a world record for the 60m when he claimed gold at the World Indoor Championships in Birmingham last year and was talked about as a new superstar sprinter in the post-Usain Bolt era.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/49558809

2019-09-02 19:00:07+00:00

sport

drug use in sport

bbc--2019-11-15--Chinese swimmer Sun blames doping officials for missed test

bbc

Chinese swimmer Sun blames doping officials for missed test

China's triple Olympic champion swimmer Sun Yang has told an appeal hearing that he missed a doping test because testers failed to prove their identity. Sun, 27, was cleared of wrongdoing by Fina, the international swimming federation, in January. The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) is appealing against the decision at a Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing, being held in public in Switzerland. "I realised they didn't have papers to prove their identification," Sun said. Speaking via translator during his hour-long evidence at the hearing in Montreux, he added: "The officials were not even capable of proving their identity. How could I allow them to take my sample? "If they had been professional and had shown their identification, we would not be here today." It is only the second time such a hearing has been held in public, following a request from multiple world champion Sun. Technical difficulties with sound and issues with Sun's translator hindered the progress of the hearing on multiple occasions. Ian Meakin, the swimmer's lawyer, complained that the translation standards were "so bad". "If you want him to answer the question, the translation must be correct," said Meakin, when referring to a Wada question which had been translated into Chinese as "200 millilitres of blood" instead of "200 times". Sun, who denies smashing with a hammer a vial containing his blood samples, faces a potential eight-year ban if he loses the case. The freestyle specialist served a three-month doping suspension in 2014 for taking the stimulant trimetazidine, which he says he took to treat a heart condition. At the World Aquatics Championships in July, Sun won gold in the 200m freestyle but Britain's Duncan Scott refused to share the podium with him. Australian swimmer Mack Horton took a similar stance after the 400m freestyle competition, years after accusing him of being a "drug cheat".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/swimming/50430299

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 11:43:29 GMT

sport

drug use in sport

bbc--2019-11-27--Wada must ban all Russian athletes from Olympics, says US Anti-Doping chief

bbc

Wada must ban all Russian athletes from Olympics, says US Anti-Doping chief

The World Anti-Doping Agency "must get tougher" and ban all Russian athletes from competing at the Olympics, says US Anti-Doping Agency chief Travis Tygart. World Athletics, formerly the IAAF, has halted Russia's reinstatement after senior officials were suspended for anti-doping rule breaches. Russia has been banned from competing as a nation in athletics since 2015. Some athletes have been able to compete under a neutral status, including at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics. "Wada must get tougher and impose the full restriction on Russian athlete participation in the Olympics that the rules allow," said Tygart. "Only such a resolute response has a chance of getting Russia's attention, changing behaviour, and protecting today's clean athletes who will compete in Tokyo, as well as future generations of athletes in Russia who deserve better than a cynical, weak response to the world's repeated calls for Russia to clean up its act. "It is sad when a country's athletes suffer for the fraud of the governmental and sport system they represent. However, the failure to stand up to Russia's five-year flaunting of the rules would cause even more harm to athletes in and outside of Russia. The time for the toughest penalty available is now." Last week, Wada's compliance review committee (CRC) recommended a raft of measures - including banning Russia from hosting and competing in major international events - after declaring the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada) non-compliant over inconsistencies in anti-doping data. Wada's executive committee will consider the recommendations and make the final decision at a meeting in Paris on 9 December. Athletes have not been able to compete for Russia since November 2015 after state-sponsored doping was uncovered. Under the terms of the ban, athletes who have met World Athletics' doping review board's drug-testing criteria can compete under a neutral flag. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has demanded the "toughest sanctions" against Russia but would be willing to allow clean athletes to compete under a neutral flag again. "Russia continues to flaunt the world's anti-doping rules, kick clean athletes in the gut and poke Wada in the eye and get away with it time and time again," Tygart added. "Wada must stand up to this fraudulent and bullying behaviour as the rules and Olympic values demand. The response proposed by the CRC is inadequate, especially given the deceit perpetuated by the Russian sport system which is controlled by the government. "History has taught us the response to Russian doping used in Rio 2016 and Pyeongchang 2018 - in which a secretly managed process permitted Russians to compete - did not work." Russian doping whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov - the former head of Moscow's anti-doping laboratory - has also called for harsher punishments. "The Russian gangster state continues to deploy a predictable and deplorable policy of deception, evidence tampering and lying to cover up its crimes," his lawyers said in a statement. "The Kremlin must think the people of the world are idiots to believe this shameless and transparent stunt. "Wada should be applauded for revealing Russia's latest crime, but if the IOC and the international sports regulatory framework gives Russia yet another free pass, other countries will simply follow in their footsteps." All the signs are that, on 9 December, Wada's leadership will accept the recommendation of its compliance panel and cast Russia into the international sporting wilderness. For the second successive Olympic Games, and in many other major events, for the next four years, there would be no official Russia team, with athletes forced to compete as neutrals and only after passing eligibility checks. Given the scale of cheating and deception, many critics will argue a blanket ban on all Russian athletes would be a more appropriate punishment. But even though almost five years have now passed since the Russian doping scandal was first exposed, this is unlikely be the end of the story. Russia is expected to appeal via the Court of Arbitration for Sport and argue that individuals acting on behalf of the state - rather than its sports authorities - were responsible for the audacious manipulation and deletion of data, and therefore athletes should not be punished. Do not be surprised therefore if the build-up to another Olympics is overshadowed by further twists in what has arguably become the gravest scandal in sports history.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/50569813

Wed, 27 Nov 2019 08:11:38 GMT

sport

drug use in sport

bbc--2019-12-08--Russia doping: Athletes wait in fear of fresh world ban

bbc

Russia doping: Athletes wait in fear of fresh world ban

Russia has become the master of denial in recent years. From military incursions to hacking to assassinations, the Kremlin has sworn blind it's not involved. But now the country's athletes are waiting nervously, facing sweeping sanctions for another doping-linked scandal, and senior officials are keeping their silence. There is one, striking exception. Yuri Ganus has been warning for months that Russian sport stands on a "cliff-edge" and needs to radically clean up its act. For that, the head of Russia's anti-doping agency, Rusada, says he has received pressure and threats. "Threats or not, clean sport is my mission," Mr Ganus told the BBC, in offices whose corridors are hung with messages of encouragement for a reformed Rusada from other anti-doping bodies around the world. The Rusada boss is sure the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) executive committee will ban Russian athletes from global competition on Monday for four years, including next year's Olympics. He argues that is Russia's own fault. The story goes back to the 2014 Sochi games, a prestige project for President Vladimir Putin that was meant to project Russian skill, strength and superiority to the world. The nation's athletes bagged medals and glory across the board. But two years later Russia's reputation was in tatters when a scientist-turned-whistleblower revealed a massive, state-backed doping programme. Returning to the sporting fold depended on Moscow proving it had turning a new page. That included handing over a key database of athletes' test results. But Yuri Ganus confirms that someone altered or deleted "thousands" of entries first. "When I opened the documents [from Wada], I was in real stress. I saw huge changes," he says. "It's a real tragedy for our sport." The "tragedy" is that this apparently crude attempt at a cover-up will hurt a generation of Russian athletes, barred from the competitions they've spent their lives preparing for. Anna Sidorova, who's won multiple medals curling for her country, is trying to blot out thoughts of a blanket ban. "I'm still training and just trying to focus on this, because that an area I can control," she says as other curlers glide by, one knee bent, on the ice behind her. "I'm not thinking about the other stuff." So pro-Kremlin TV channels have been working to channel public anger. One chat show claimed Wada's accusations were invented by Europeans to eliminate a powerful sporting rival. A documentary claimed the original whistleblower was responsible, accessing the electronic database remotely from the US to alter it. Some sports officials are also apparently in denial. "Why I should I believe Wada and not our own people here in Russia?" Yelena Vyalbe, the head of the cross-country ski federation, wants to know. The former Olympic champion's office is stuffed with trophies and decorated with an image of Vladimir Putin on horseback. "This anti-Russian hysteria is a multi-part series we've all seen before," she says. "Even [1990s soap-opera] Santa Barbara was more interesting than this show on Russia and doping." "Do they think we're total idiots?" the skier asks. Was it all down to stupidity? That is part of the key question. Were those who altered the database - and so dug Russia into an even deeper hole - incompetent, imagining they'd never be found out? Or did they not care about the consequences? Sergei Medvedev, of Moscow's Higher School of Economics, suspects the former. "It was crystal clear this would be detected. It was such stupidity, so outrageous! It's like Monty Python stuff," he says, adding that the world had seen "such a strain of idiocy" before, with the 2018 poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal in the UK. The two suspects then appeared on state TV with a ridiculously implausible cover story. Mr Medvedev doesn't see the direct hand of the Kremlin in the latest doping scandal, though. He suggests it's more likely that influential people - possibly former athletes - wanted the data purged. "I think someone tried to protect their reputation," Yuri Ganus agrees. "Perhaps those who now work in high level authority structures, in sports. I don't know, exactly. "This is a wrong and bad old school approach. We need to change." As athletes wait to learn their fate, the minister responsible for handing the files over to Wada remains tight-lipped. A former champion fencer, Pavel Kolobkov was appointed to head the sports ministry in the post-Sochi era, part of Russia demonstrating its commitment to clean sport. But he has not condemned the apparent cover-up, refusing to comment at all until Wada rules on any sanctions. For Russia, though, all this runs deeper than sport: it's about how the country is run, its priorities - and how it behaves in a crisis. So far, the traditional techniques - deny, accuse, bluster - are all in play. But the stakes are different. Threatened with political isolation by the West, Moscow can shrug that off - pointing to other allies, other options. In sport, a stage on which Russia loves to strut its stuff, there is no alternative to integration. "In politics, you can play with a poker face, deny the undeniable - but not in sport," Sergei Medvedev argues. "There are clear sanctions - and you can't do sport on your own." "Russia could hold a 'home' Olympics with Turkmenistan, Belarus and North Korea," he says. "But everyone would laugh at that."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50672003

Sun, 08 Dec 2019 00:01:13 GMT

sport

drug use in sport

bbc--2019-12-08--Russian doping scandal: Athletes call for blanket Olympic ban

bbc

Russian doping scandal: Athletes call for blanket Olympic ban

Members of the World Anti-Doping Agency's Athletes Committee have demanded a blanket ban on Russian athletes competing at the Olympics. Wada holds a key meeting in Lausanne on Monday to discuss sanctions. Russia was declared non-compliant for manipulating laboratory data handed over to investigators. A key panel has recommended a raft of measures - including banning Russia from hosting and competing in major international events. The International Olympic Committee has said it would would be willing to allow Russian athletes who can prove they are clean to compete under a neutral flag, as at last year's Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. But a majority of the members of Wada's influential athletes' committee say they "strongly believe the only appropriate response is a complete ban on Russian participation", ruling them out of the Tokyo Games next year, and Beijing 2022. In a joint statement, nine members of the 17-strong group, including chair Beckie Scott, and British former Paralympian Vicki Aggar, said such a step was "the only meaningful sanction." "We maintain that the fraud, manipulation and deception revealed to date will only be encouraged and perpetuated with a lesser response" they added. "Until these critical abuses of integrity in sport are confronted with courage and a resolute commitment to protect athletes and clean sport, they will continue, and the sports we love remain tarnished. "To date, the Russian doping saga has dominated three Olympic and Paralympic Games, with a fourth on the horizon. Russia's ongoing and intentional acts of deception, fraud and corruption have made a mockery not only those who play by the rules, but those who create and safeguard them." Russia had to hand over data to Wada as a condition of its controversial reinstatement in 2018 after a three-year suspension for its vast state-sponsored doping scandal. With the US and UK Anti-Doping Agencies also calling on Wada's executive committee to issue the "strongest possible sanctions", Russia now faces the threat of being thrown into the international sporting wilderness, but is expected to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. In Russia, there is scepticism with one chat show claiming Wada's accusations were invented by Europeans to eliminate a powerful sporting rival. A documentary claimed the original whistleblower was responsible, accessing the electronic database remotely from the US to alter it. • From Moscow: Athletes wait in fear of fresh ban

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/50704129

Sun, 08 Dec 2019 11:23:16 GMT

sport

drug use in sport

bbc--2019-12-19--Russia to appeal against four-year ban from major sporting events for doping offences

bbc

Russia to appeal against four-year ban from major sporting events for doping offences

Russia is set to appeal against the decision to ban it from all major sporting events for four years. Its anti-doping agency, Rusada, says it does not agree with the punishment from the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada). The bans means Russia's flag and anthem will not be allowed at events such as the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics and football's 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Rusada says a letter to Wada will be prepared on behalf of the president "in the next 10-15 days". "Then the ball will be in Wada's court and the situation will be developing in the legal field," added Alexander Ivlev, head of Rusada's supervisory board. Wada's executive committee made the unanimous decision to impose the ban on Russia in a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, last week. It comes after Rusada was declared non-compliant for manipulating laboratory data handed over to investigators in January 2019. It had to hand over data to Wada as a condition of its controversial reinstatement in 2018 after a three-year suspension for its vast state-sponsored doping scandal. Russian president Vladimir Putin said after the ruling the country had grounds to appeal against the decision. • Can Russia still play at the 2022 World Cup and Euro 2020? • Promoters 'confident' race will go ahead despite sporting ban Wada president Sir Craig Reedie said the decision showed its "determination to act resolutely in the face of the Russian doping crisis". However, vice-president Linda Helleland says the ban was "not enough", and it has also been criticised by other nations' doping bodies. Athletes who can prove they are untainted by the doping scandal will be able to compete under a neutral flag. A total of 168 Russian athletes competed under a neutral flag at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. Russia has been banned from competing as a nation in athletics since 2015.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/50850514

Thu, 19 Dec 2019 13:16:29 GMT

sport

drug use in sport

newyorkpost--2019-01-03--These badass bodybuilding bros start workouts with chocolate

newyorkpost

These badass bodybuilding bros start workouts with chocolate

Brodie Van Wagenen’s suggestion last summer that the Mets need...

Lauren Steussy

https://nypost.com/2019/01/02/these-badass-bodybuilding-bros-start-workouts-with-chocolate/

2019-01-03 00:59:26+00:00

sport

bodybuilding

sputnik--2019-01-31--Israeli Muezzin Muscled Out of Mosque Over Bodybuilding Contest Outfit Reports

sputnik

Israeli Muezzin Muscled Out of Mosque Over Bodybuilding Contest Outfit – Reports

READ MORE: Instant Karma? Police Kill Bodybuilder After He Attacks His Tinder Date The Israeli Interior Ministry decided that his participation in the 2017 competition contradicted his religion. According to a ministry spokesman, Masri was sacked over his inappropriate attire – bodybuilders typically wear brief trunks during contests. “This is an unjust decision. The religion of Islam encourages any individual to practice sport. They showed me the pictures of me participating in the competition, and they considered it was not appropriate for a muezzin to practice this sport”, the 46-year-old athlete, who won the 2017 championships in his category, told AFP. He even sent a letter to the Interior Ministry with an apology and a promise not to participate in any other competitions. “They knew I was involved in this sport before I was hired”, said Masri, who has filed an appeal, which is expected to be heard next month.

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201901311071997105-israel-muezzin-bodybuilder-fired/

2019-01-31 12:21:49+00:00

sport

bodybuilding

sputnik--2019-05-29--Women With Perfect Bodies and Strong Muscles Asian Bodybuilding Championships

sputnik

Women With Perfect Bodies and Strong Muscles: Asian Bodybuilding Championships

Six countries: Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the host country Kazakhstan have participated in the competition, which was organised by the Bodybuilding, Powerlifting & Fitness Federation of the Kazakhstan Republic. The participants of the imposing event impressed the audience with their sculpted, muscular bodies. Athletes literally inspired viewers to pull themselves together and to work on themselves.

https://sputniknews.com/photo/201905291075430260-asian-bodybuilding-championships/

2019-05-29 11:00:00+00:00

sport

bodybuilding

sputnik--2019-11-15--Indian Bodybuilder Crowned First Ever ‘Mr. Universe’ at Int’l Bodybuilding Championship

sputnik

Indian Bodybuilder Crowned First Ever ‘Mr. Universe’ at Int’l Bodybuilding Championship

Chitharesh Natesan from the Indian state of Kerala has been named Mr Universe 2019, after first winning the Mr World title and then competing against finalists to claim the coveted top honour in the 90 kg category. He also became the first Indian ever to have won both titles at the World Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Championship which was held in South Korea this year. A total of 38 countries participated at the 11th World Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Championship (WBFF) and India bagged a tally of 23 medals in total, including 6 gold, 13 silver and 4 bronze medals in an event held between November 5 and November 10. India secured the second position in the team championship category, followed by Thailand. Thrilled to have won the coveted titles and represent India on a global platform, Natesan said he was training and bodybuilding for the past 10 years when he was selected for the Indian team, and began preparations for the international championship. He shared that he added another feather to his cap earlier this year, by winning the International Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation Mr Asia 2019 title in Indonesia in September. “After winning the Asian Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Championship earlier this year, I went on to participate in the World Championship. I am very happy to bring gold for my country India,” the Indian daily Indian Express quoted Natesan as saying. The bodybuilder, who has several titles to his name, works as a fitness trainer in Delhi at a gymnasium. He had earlier won Mr Delhi four times and Mr India in 2015. He was also was crowned Mr World in 2018. Natesan is also a trained Latin dancer and loves to dance for fun to take a break from bodybuilding.

https://sputniknews.com/asia/201911151077311521-indian-bodybuilder-crowned-first-ever--mr-universe-at-intl-bodybuilding-championship/

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 12:02:03 +0300

sport

bodybuilding

thedailymirror--2019-11-06--Vegan bodybuilding champs insist 'you don't need meat to build muscle'

thedailymirror

Vegan bodybuilding champs insist 'you don't need meat to build muscle'

A pair of vegan bodybuilding champs have insisted 'you don't need meat to build muscle'. Clare, 47, and Mark Bennett, 51, from Hull, believe they are proof that a plant-based diet can still achieve amazing results. The pair, who run their own gym, ditched meat many years ago and have not looked back, reports Hull Live. And they were recently crowned winners of the couples category at Hull FMU Bodybuilding and Fitness show. They are now on a mission to break down misconceptions that you need meat to bulk up and that 'eating flesh builds flesh'. Mum-of-two Clare, who has been eating a fully plant-based diet since 2015, said: "Being plant-based certainly did not hinder us which is the perception in bodybuilding. "Mark and I have always wanted to get on stage as bodybuilders. It was the best feeling ever to get that first place trophy, like a dream come true. "Also it is a beautiful legacy for our children, Amy and Dax. Hopefully they will get over the embarrassment of Mum and Dad on stage in very little clothing and they will be inspired by the fact that at 47 and 51 Dad could still lift Mum above his head! "How many couples can say this?" Clare, who was a vegetarian for 18 years before going vegan, said her and husband Mark want to show a plant-based diet is a good way of life, and inspire others to follow in their footsteps. She went plant- based after reading 'The China Study’ and was introduced to a whole new world of nutritional thinking. She said: "I decided that I was going to go plant-based and tried my best to persuade everyone to do the same - usually by spouting facts and figures and wondering why people were not listening. "I have two aims when I meet people and that is to persuade them to resistance train – either in a gym, on a pole or in the aerial studio, and to stop eating animals and their excretions - for your health and longevity, for the animals and the environment." Clare said it can be hard for people to transition to a plant-based diet, but that many people like her never look back once converted. She said: "Experience has now taught me that transitioning to a whole foods plant-based diet is different for everyone and people need space and guidance to transition into this way of eating. "In the early days we came across lots of prejudice. People are always shocked. The first thing everyone says is 'where do you get your protein?' To which I always reply ‘plants'." Bodybuilding diets are notoriously restrictive, but Clare says being vegan allows her to eat a range of foods like oats, berries, scrambled tofu, avocado, brown rice and quinoa. "I absolutely love cooking and my Instagram account is full of everything we eat," she said. "We have lots and lots of colourful food and full of variety. "We eat rice and beans, chilli, pizza bean burgers, in fact anything a meat eater eats, I can create a meat and animal product free version. "During competition preparation food is less varied and more mono foods based as this is easer to track calories and how much fat, protein and carbs we are eating. "We eat like a typical bodybuilder by maintaining a high protein low calorie diet coming up to competition so that we can preserve muscle whist losing fat. "I tend to use foods that are slightly more processed such as fake meats as these are easy to calculate because they have a food label and its easier to find foods with lower carbohydrates compared to whole foods. "Once the season is over we are right back on the whole foods plant based diet."

mirrornews@mirror.co.uk (Joanna Lovell)

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/vegan-bodybuilding-champs-insist-you-20826609

Wed, 6 Nov 2019 17:40:26 +0000

sport

bodybuilding

thesun--2019-01-29--Divorcee and timid stay-at-home mum transforms herself to bodybuilding champ using her kids as makes

thesun

Divorcee and timid stay-at-home mum transforms herself to bodybuilding champ using her kids as makeshift weights… but now can’t find jeans to fit her bulky thighs

A DIVORCEE has transformed herself into a bodybuilding champion using her kids as makeshift weights when she can't hit the gym - but now can't find jeans to fit her bulky thighs. After hitting rock bottom following a relationship breakdown, single mum-of-three Natasha Noble, 36, has become so ripped that her waist has shrunk from 30 to 25 inches. But her muscular 23 inch thighs are so powerful it’s a struggle to find trousers that will accommodate them. Now working as a personal trainer, Natasha, of Loughborough, Leicestershire said: “Flicking through Instagram in 2012 when I was eight months pregnant with my youngest child, I saw these pictures of female bodybuilders and was in awe of them. “I was so determined to change that I went to the gym just two weeks after giving birth and used the treadmill, despite being warned by the midwife against doing any strenuous activity for the first six weeks. “Now I want to encourage other women who have lost their confidence to do the same, as it was the start of a whole new me.” When she could not get to the gym, Natasha even used her children as makeshift weights. “When my 10-year-old daughter, Simran, was about five, I used to lift her right across my back,” she recalled. “Of course, she and her big sister Satinder, who’s 13, are too big even for me to use as weights now.” Natasha, who does not wish to name her third child, who has a different dad, explained how she feels training helped her to “take back control” of her life after splitting up with her ex in 2014. She said: “I was a stay-at-home mum for 10 years and I loved bringing up my kids, but I was married at 20 and soon started to feel like I was losing sight of who I was. “I met my daughters’ dad when we were both working in a nightclub, but I soon left to have children and stopped having real goals in life. “I felt that once I had kids, that was basically it for me and my life, and all of a sudden everything I did was for my kids and my husband. I lost myself really, and then sadly our marriage ended after running its course.” Throwing herself into training after her most recent serious relationship ended has changed her entire outlook on life. She continued: “I realised that I didn’t have to be timid anymore and I could start investing in myself and striving towards personal greatness. “I’d seen how beautiful and powerful female bodybuilders were and had one thought, ‘This is what I want to be.'” “I just fell in love with the sheer power of those women and the beauty of their muscles. “From that moment on, all I could think about was how I was going to become like them one day.” Six months after having her third child, Natasha graduated from the treadmill to doing squats, to build up strength in her quads. Encouraged by the results, she would visit the gym for between two and four hours every day, following a strict regime, fuelled by protein-packed meals every two hours. “The results were really encouraging,” she said. “I remember lots of my friends coming over to see me and being amazed at how flat my stomach was just days after leaving hospital. “I think I had been so fixated on getting stronger after seeing those bodybuilder pics that I was really mentally prepared and, when I started working out, my body responded almost immediately.” When school holidays and looking after her children made going to the gym impossible, she would use her daughters as weights. She joked: “They were the perfect substitute. At around three or four stone then, they were the perfect weight for me to lift. “And they loved it – jumping on my back as soon as they saw me come downstairs in my exercise gear.” Now, Natasha tours the country competing in bodybuilding contests and, since around 2015, has worked as a personal trainer. She said: “My greatest achievements to date were both in 2015, when I won gold in the UK Body Fitness Federation Grand Prix in London, and the Sugar’s Classic in Leicester in the big girls’ class.” Now happy to be single and to concentrate on her career and motherhood, Natasha’s big goal is to encourage other women to follow her lead and find themselves through bodybuilding. She said: “At the moment I don’t have any desire to be with a man, because it’s a waste of the time that I could be devoting to my daughters or my training. “I want to keep getting fitter and stronger so that when I’m 70 years old I’ll still be able to run around with my daughters. “I want my story to inspire other women to find and love themselves and improve their confidence through bodybuilding, like me. Self-love is the key. “I feel like a different person to the woman I was. I’m confident and strong and don’t need anyone to look after me – I’m finally my own person.” We previously told how a woman was homeless at 18 and dropped to a skinny size 4 – but now she's a professional bodybuilder after gaining three stone.

hrichardson

https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/8303067/divorcee-bodybuilder-champ-uses-kids-as-weights/

2019-01-29 10:02:38+00:00

sport

bodybuilding

sputnik--2019-09-24--Russian Female Bodybuilder Wins 2019 Arnold Classic Europe

sputnik

Russian Female Bodybuilder Wins 2019 Arnold Classic Europe

"Yes! We did it!", Makarova said on Instagram, adding that her dream had come true. The Russian athlete thanked her fans for their support and said that she now plans to have a rest. Notably, Makarova changed her daily office routine for professional fitness two years ago. She holds the title of absolute 2018 bodybuilding champion in Russia's Krasnoyarsk region and absolute Siberian champion of the same year. The Arnold Classic is one of the most prestigious bodybuilding tournaments in the world. The 2019 event was held in Spain's Barcelona on 20-22 September.

https://sputniknews.com/viral/201909241076874154-russian-female-bodybuilder-wins-2019-arnold-classic-europe/

2019-09-24 02:14:30+00:00

sport

bodybuilding

thesun--2019-11-06--Pit Trenz dead at 53: Legendary German bodybuilder passes away after lungs collapse following battle

thesun

Pit Trenz dead at 53: Legendary German bodybuilder passes away after lungs collapse following battle with pneumonia

LEGENDARY German bodybuilder Pit Trenz has died at the age of 53. Trenz represented Germany throughout his career as an IFBB Pro bodybuilder and his devastated wife - and fellow bodybuilder - Sarah has confirmed his death. In a heartbreaking statement, Sarah revealed she doesn't know “how her life can go on” without Pit. Trenz spent time in hospital earlier this year to deal with an unspecified heart condition. Reports claims the medicine he was given led to organ failure after his body reacted poorly to it. Trenz contracted pneumonia before his lungs collapsed. He died in a German hospital on November 3. His wife posted a photo of the pair on social media with the caption: “Yesterday when we planned that I compete at my Pro Debut. "My husband, Pit Trenz (Former IFBB PRO), died after we were fighting side by side for 4 weeks. "He was my heart, my life, my second half. He always said, we are one person. "I don't know how life can go on. He was my life. "I will push forward, only for him. Pit was most afraid of being separated from me. And I of him. The best person I have ever met." Pit himself had updated fans on his condition six days before his death, writing: “Still alive. Not much news. "After three weeks of intensive care there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. “No day is predictable. Every two days a new problem appears.” Pit had retired from bodybuilding but helped prepare and support other professionals such as Roman Fritz, Dennis Wolf and Markus Ruhl.

Dave Fraser

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/10291665/pit-trenz-dead-53-bodybuilder-wife/

Wed, 06 Nov 2019 15:41:28 +0000

sport

bodybuilding

bbc--2019-08-07--Ghanas backyard bodybuilders

bbc

Ghana's backyard bodybuilders

A group of bodybuilding enthusiasts are finding an alternative way to keep fit by setting up their own gym in a backyard in Ghana. Most of the equipment in the gym in Akropong, southern Ghana, has been made from scrap metal. BBC Sport Africa's Emeline Nsingi Nkosi went to see them at work.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-49256531

2019-08-07 23:05:15+00:00

sport

bodybuilding

thedailymirror--2019-11-10--Michael Griffiths plans huge bodybuilding return as he moves on from reality TV

thedailymirror

Michael Griffiths plans huge bodybuilding return as he moves on from reality TV

Michael Griffiths ' former trainer has dropped a huge hint he could be competing in bodybuilding competitions again before the end of the year. The 28-year-old gym-obsessed Liverpudlian had a lengthy history of competing in the sport before he entered the Love Island villa, but has since made no return due to a busy schedule. Now his trainer and close pal Nathan De Asha, 32, has lifted the lid to Mirror Online on Michael's life as a competitor and what his future could shape into. Speaking about former firefighter Michael's past experience at competing and if he's considering taking to the stage again, Nathan told Mirror Online: "I believe he is from what I gather." Michael trains at Prophecy Performance Centre in his hometown - where International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness (IFBB) pro De Asha is the gym owner. After his Love Island stint, Michael accumulated a rather busy schedule, working with different brands since leaving the hit ITV2 show - meaning he's laid off the training for a while as he isn't able to "fully commit". Nathan, nicknamed 'The Prophecy', confessed: "When I've spoken to him he said he'll get back to it when he's able to fully commit." While IFBB pro Nathan hasn't given a date Michael could potentially return, it's likely to be soon as the star has already shared his thoughts on competing to Nathan. "He doesn't just want to be another athlete up there he wants to win and dominate like he has in the past and like many of his pals at our gym do," Nathan added. Having just finished filming Ex On The Beach , it could be the perfect break for Michael to get back into training once again. With Michael's huge ego, it's no surprise he wants to "win and dominate" in future competitions and to perform at his best. Nathan continued: "If he has the time and in Liverpool, he will be with us at Prophecy Performance Centre, that's where he trains from. "He has access 24/7 to the gym as he has a set of keys, due to his schedule when he was a firefighter." It seems De Asha has a lot of faith in Michael, having seen him compete before. The pro bodybuilder said: "I think he will dominate his physique when he's fully training is awesome." When asked if it's something he was always going to go back to, Nathan unveiled: "I believe so you know. It's a passion and a hobby he's really interested in. "All his friends are from the same gym. We train at my gym Prophecy Performance Centre," referring to his personal trainer pals. Although Michael didn't mention his bodybuilding past on Love Island, he managed to keep up a daily gym routine alongside his pals in the villa, including Tommy Fury . And having managed to keep in good shape, Nathan shared how he didn't see it being a problem for Michael to train again when he came out. "I don't see how leaving Love Island would affect him from training really, and doing what he enjoys, and his friends enjoy training together," he said. The reality TV star came 2nd when he competed in a Physical Culture Association show for pro men's physique on May 13 2018 - and he even bagged himself some cash. Michael himself has hinted at having another go at his hobby, as he posted a photo on Instagram shortly after his win with a lengthy caption - suggesting it'll be before the end of this year. It read: "It's Monday and time to start progressing to bring the best package to the stage yet 2019 is going to be a big year for building and I'm already looking forward to stepping back on stage." Nathan - now one of the world's most recognised bodybuilders - has turned his life around since he was jailed for encouraging Liverpool riots in 2011. He was widely condemned for his role in the L1 rioting. His Facebook posts during the riots landed him behind bars after someone sent a print out of his rants to a police station. De Asha posted a string of statuses which whipped up enthusiasm for the trouble, as he encouraged his 855 friends to "terrorise police" and "hit town and get something out of it". Now he claims he is a changed man as he told Liverpool Echo: "I'm sorry for what I did. When I look back on it, my words were stupid, they were wrong. I'm not willing to ever do that or be in that place again."

mirrornews@mirror.co.uk (Brogan-Leigh Hurst)

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/michael-griffiths-plans-huge-bodybuilding-20849053

Sun, 10 Nov 2019 22:07:29 +0000

sport

bodybuilding

bbc--2019-03-15--Fifa approves 24-team Club World Cup despite European boycott threat

bbc

Fifa approves 24-team Club World Cup despite European boycott threat

Fifa has approved a revised 24-team Club World Cup starting in 2021 despite top European clubs saying they would boycott the tournament. The new competition is expected to include eight teams from Europe. It will run every four years and take place from June to July in the slot currently used for the World Cup warm-up event, the Confederations Cup. Fifa president Gianni Infantino said he was "extremely happy" after the Fifa Council backed his plan on Friday. "Now the world will see a real Club World Cup where fans will see the best teams in the world compete to be crowned the real world champions," he said. The Club World Cup is currently held every December and features seven teams from six confederations, but the competition is largely ignored by European fans. As well as eight European clubs, the new tournament would see six teams from South America, three each from Africa, Asia and North and Central America and one from Oceania. It has been suggested each club could earn £50m from taking part. The European Club Association (ECA) says any new competitions should be part of an agreed framework for the international match calendar post-2024. ECA board members, including Manchester United's chief executive Ed Woodward, signed a letter expressing concerns, which was revealed earlier on Friday. "[We are] firmly against any potential approval of a revised CWC - no ECA clubs would take part," it said. When asked if he was concerned about staging a new Club World Cup without any of Europe's elite clubs, Infantino said: "We hope that all the best teams will participate and we've had some very positive discussions with Uefa. "But it was our responsibility to take a decision because we have to deal with the organisational matters - it is only two years away." The Fifa Council also decided that it would be "feasible" to expand the Qatar 2022 World Cup from 32 to 48 teams. World football's governing body voted to expand the 2026 World Cup - which will be hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States - to 48 teams in 2017. The council will now discuss potential additional hosts to Qatar and a final decision will be made at a Fifa congress in Paris in June. "If it happens, fantastic. If it doesn't happen, fantastic also," said Infantino. The ECA's letter was addressed to Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin, who has been asked to explain the position at the Fifa Council meeting, which is taking place in Miami. The letter, obtained by BBC Sport, stated that there should be no changes to the current fixed international match calendar (IMC), which runs until 2024, and raised concerns about fixture congestion. It said: "We wish to restate the position of ECA: (a) ECA is unwilling to consider any new or significantly revised competition prior to a holistic assessment of the IMC post-2024 being conducted and an agreement as to its underlying principles being reached; and (b) in any event, a Club World Cup in June 2021, as proposed by Fifa, is not acceptable in light of the existing competitions and the IMC, which is fixed until 2024." According to a Fifa document seen by Associated Press, it has been proposed the tournament would run from 17 June to 4 July, with 2022 World Cup qualifiers (31 May to 8 June) preceding it and the African Cup of Nations and Concacaf Gold Cup possibly taking place from 5 July to 31 July. Fifa said it was aware of concerns of "serious interference with critical matches" but added that members of its own task force "felt that it was feasible to play the Club World Cup" during that period.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47586593

2019-03-15 17:47:56+00:00

sport

sport event

bbc--2019-06-02--Fifa Womens World Cup Fixtures groups and BBC coverage

bbc

Fifa Women's World Cup: Fixtures, groups and BBC coverage

R16 winner four v R16 winner five, 20:00, Paris, BBC Four SF one loser v SF two loser 16:00, Nice, BBC Two SF one winner v SF two winner, 16:00, Lyon, BBC One

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48064212

2019-06-02 20:01:18+00:00

sport

sport event

bbc--2019-06-24--Womens World Cup Fifa to look into Cameroon behaviour in England defeat

bbc

Women's World Cup: Fifa to look into Cameroon behaviour in England defeat

Fifa says it is "currently looking into" Cameroon's behaviour during their World Cup last-16 defeat by England. It comes after an African football chief said it "reflected badly on African football". England's 3-0 victory on Sunday was marred by Cameroon's reaction to two video assistant referee decisions and poor challenges on England's players. A Fifa spokesperson told BBC Sport: "further updates will be provided in due course". Earlier on Monday, Isha Johansen, chair of the Confederation of African Football's women's football committee, said she wanted an investigation to be opened. Johansen, who is also the president of the Sierra Leone Football Association, told BBC Sport it was an "embarrassing situation". In a statement, she said: "Whilst remaining proud of our African teams that participated in the Fifa Women's World Cup, yesterday's match between England and Cameroon reflected badly, not only on African women's football but African football on the whole. "It is an issue which will be addressed and dealt with at the appropriate levels of governance." There was an on-pitch protest by Cameroon's players after England's second goal, scored by Ellen White, was awarded by VAR. Cameroon were also visibly upset when, with the score at 2-0, Ajara Nchout's goal was ruled out for offside by VAR. They were fortunate to finish the game with 11 players on the pitch after Yvonne Leuko was booked for an apparent elbow on England winger Nikita Parris, Augustine Ejangue spat on Toni Duggan and Alexandra Takounda was shown a yellow card for a late challenge on captain Steph Houghton in stoppage time. Johansen told BBC Sport: "Clearly when something happens like what happened yesterday, the disappointment that we saw on the pitch, we as Africans felt for Cameroon as a family, as one. "We take the collective blame, but at the same time, without sounding like we are condoning what happened, I think it's all about now actually understanding why it happened. "These are the issues that I think CAF has got to address and will address, clearly so we can avoid the same mistakes happening." Speaking after the match, England boss Phil Neville said he was "ashamed" by Cameroon's behaviour, adding it "didn't feel like football". But Cameroon coach Alain Djeumfa blamed the referee in his post-match news conference, saying the match was a "miscarriage of justice". BBC Sport has launched #ChangeTheGame this summer to showcase female athletes in a way they never have been before. Through more live women's sport available to watch across the BBC this summer, complemented by our journalism, we are aiming to turn up the volume on women's sport and alter perceptions. Find out more here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48746183

2019-06-24 13:49:40+00:00

sport

sport event

bbc--2019-12-07--Fifa forced to change stadium for Club World Cup final

bbc

Fifa forced to change stadium for Club World Cup final

Fifa has been forced to switch the venue for the final of the Club World Cup in Qatar because the stadium where it was scheduled to be held has not been signed off. The Education City Stadium in Doha was due to host Liverpool's semi-final on 18 December, plus the third-place play-off and the final on 21 December. The 40,000-capacity ground is built but yet to hold any test events. Matches will now be held at the city's Khalifa International Stadium. The venue, which has a capacity of 48,000, hosted the World Athletics Championships in September and October, and was already scheduled to host two games in the seven-team competition. Organisers believe the change will lead to minimum disruption. • BBC to show every Club World Cup game live as Liverpool bid for glory

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50697723

Sat, 07 Dec 2019 10:16:58 GMT

sport

sport event

bbcuk--2019-07-01--Fifa Womens World Cup England face favourites USA with place in final at stake

bbcuk

Fifa Women's World Cup: England face favourites USA with place in final at stake

England manager Phil Neville says he has been planning for a crucial Women's World Cup meeting with the United States since the day he took the job. Neville's side face the holders in Lyon in the last four on Tuesday, aiming to reach the final for the first time. Victory would make the Lionesses the first senior England team to reach a major global final since 1966. "We've planned for it, we've played against them and we know how we're going to play," Neville told BBC Sport. "When it was France or USA in the semi-final every one of my players said: 'Let's hope it's USA.' "When I got the job [in January 2018], the first three games I looked at were the USA. I was sitting in my house in Valencia and watched three games in one afternoon because I thought: 'How can we win the World Cup?' "You have to beat the best, and the USA are the best. They've proven it. "But we're ready for them. Sometimes, before these games, you can have fear and trepidation - but I can smell nothing but freedom, happiness and excitement." The Lionesses have reached the last four for the second World Cup - and a third major tournament - in a row and have a fully fit squad. They beat Norway 3-0 in the quarter-finals, with a record-breaking UK television audience of 7.6 million cheering them on. Favourites and three-time champions the USA - who have never failed to make the semi-finals of the World Cup - beat hosts France. Both sides have been preparing for the game amid a heatwave across France, but temperatures are expected to be slightly fresher by Tuesday's 20:00 BST kick-off. A crowd of close to the Stade de Lyon's tournament capacity of 57,900 is expected. European champions the Netherlands face Sweden in Wednesday's other semi-final, with the winners from the two matches meeting in the final in Lyon on Sunday. The losers will play in Saturday's third-place play-off in Nice. The United States, who are top of the world rankings, go into the match as favourites against third-ranked England and have won 10 of the teams' 16 meetings. But legendary USA keeper Hope Solo told BBC Sport the Lionesses have the tactical edge and that "they will have a better chance to beat the USA in a World Cup match than ever before". Both sides have won every game so far at these finals but England's Lyon defender Lucy Bronze, who will be playing at her home stadium, believes her side have a clear advantage over all the other semi-finalists. "We have more hunger than the other teams because we have never reached a final," said Bronze, who has never lost a game at the Stade de Lyon. "You look at the four teams left and we're the only team that hasn't reached a final. The Olympics, the World Cup, the Euros, these other three teams have all reached finals in recent years. "It definitely takes more to reach a final - but who better to know that it takes more than a team that has been knocked out of two consecutive semi-finals?" After beating Norway to reach the semi-finals, Neville said his team's mantra is that they want to be "badass women". In the United States, they come up against a group of players who are established stars - striker Alex Morgan was the only footballer apart from Liverpool's Mohamed Salah to feature in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of 2019 - and they are involved in a fight with US Soccer for pay equality with the men's team. But England forward Nikita Parris insists the Lionesses, who drew with the USA 2-2 in their last meeting en route to winning the SheBelieves Cup on American soil in March, will not be overawed. "Why shouldn't we think we can be badder than them when we went to the SheBelieves and we won it?" said Parris, who will be playing at her new club ground after moving from Manchester City to Lyon this summer. "We went toe to toe with them. We beat them under [previous manager] Mark Sampson's reign. Why shouldn't we think we can beat them? Why do we have to come to this tournament semi-final and think 'oh, it's America'? "Nobody fears America. Nobody fears Germany. What's the point in coming to a World Cup if you're not prepared to dream? These are the moments you live for." USA winger and co-captain Megan Rapinoe has scored two goals in both of their knockout games to give them back-to-back 2-1 victories. The 33-year-old's match-winning doubles came either side of her being criticised by president Donald Trump for snubbing a potential post-tournament visit to the White House. On Tuesday, she is set to go head to head with England right-back Bronze, who Neville has said is the "best player in the world" and "deserves to win the Ballon d'Or" award. England's Lyon midfielder Izzy Christiansen - who missed the tournament after being injured in March - told the BBC: "Her [Megan Rapinoe] up against Lucy [Bronze] is going to be one heck of a battle. "It is one which could potentially win or lose the game, given both their form." Three of the players set to be involved on Tuesday are tied on five goals at the top of the tournament standings, along with Australia's Sam Kerr, although the Matildas were eliminated in the last 16. Manchester City and England striker Ellen White's tap-in against Norway was her fifth goal of the campaign, putting her alongside Kerr and the USA duo of Rapinoe and Morgan. "It's a shootout maybe between Ellen and Alex Morgan for the top scorer," Neville said. "There are going to be brilliant players on this football pitch." According to Gracenote Sports, which captures and curates sports data, the USA have the highest chance of lifting the trophy on 7 July, with a 41% probability, according to simulations. England, who have never knocked a higher-ranked side out of the tournament, are said to have a 38% chance of reaching the final. The USA against the Netherlands is deemed to be the most likely final, with the Lionesses and the Oranje both said to have a 22% chance of becoming champions. An England v Sweden final is statistically the least likely, with the Swedes said to have only a 16% chance of glory on Sunday. BBC Sport has launched #ChangeTheGame this summer to showcase female athletes in a way they never have been before. Through more live women's sport available to watch across the BBC this summer, complemented by our journalism, we are aiming to turn up the volume on women's sport and alter perceptions. Find out more here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48818658

2019-07-01 21:30:24+00:00

sport

sport event

eveningstandard--2019-03-15--Club World Cup Fifa ignores Europe to approve new 24-team tournament starting in 2021

eveningstandard

Club World Cup: Fifa ignores Europe to approve new 24-team tournament starting in 2021

World football's governing body Fifa has ignored European opposition to its plan to revamp the Club World Cup by voting to approve a new 24-team tournament starting in June 2021. Describing himself as a "very happy man", Fifa president Gianni Infantino announced the decision after a meeting of the ruling council in Miami on Friday. But the move to scrap the current seven-team tournament, which takes place every winter but is largely ignored by European fans, and replace it with a larger, more lucrative contest every fourth summer, would appear to set Fifa on collision course with Europe's elite. Infantino wants Europe to provide eight of the 24 teams, with six coming from South America, three each from Africa, Asia and North and Central America and one from Oceania, and it is suggested that each club could earn £50million for taking part. But the European Club Association, which represents 232 of the continent's leading sides, Europe's governing body Uefa and the world players' union FIFPro are unhappy with what they claim is a lack of consultation in regards to the congested global calendar and Infantino's financial plans for the new tournament. In a letter that was leaked on Friday, the ECA's executive board, including the bosses of Barcelona, Juve, Manchester United and Real Madrid, said they would not take part in any new competition until 2024 at the earliest and would even consider suing Fifa if it ignored their 2015 deal on the international match calendar. Speaking to reporters in Miami, Infantino admitted there have been "differences of opinion" since he first floated the idea last year and referred to "constructive dialogue" with Europe that he hoped to build on. For him, though, the decision to approve his plan was a "milestone in Fifa's history", saying that "the world will now see a real Club World Cup where fans will see the best teams in the world compete to be crowned the real world champions". He said club football was "evolving at a different pace in different parts of the world" and it was Fifa's duty to put on an "exciting, prestigious and inclusive competition, and we'll have that with this Club World Cup, starting in 2021". Asked if he was concerned about the prospect of Fifa staging a new events without its biggest stars, Infantino said: "We hope that all the best teams will participate and we've had some very positive discussions with (European football's governing body) Uefa. "But today it was our responsibility to take a decision because we have to​ deal with the organisational matters - it is only two years away." In its letter, the ECA, which represents 232 of Europe's best teams, strongly criticised Infantino for failing to reveal more details about who is providing the financial backing for the new competition and ignoring its concerns about the impact on players. His original plan was to revamp the Club World Cup and start a Global Nationals League, with the two competitions worth a guaranteed £18.8billion over 12 years from a group of investors led by Japan's technology fund SoftBank. The Global Nations League has been quietly dropped and Infantino has still not provided any further details on his mystery backers for the new Club World Cup. But he dismissed the idea that Fifa was increasing the strain on players, saying the new Club World Cup was replacing two unloved competitions: the annual Club World Cup and World Cup warm-up event, the Confederations Cup. "We are the only organisation reducing the number of tournaments and games - this will not have a neutral impact on the calendar, it will be positive," he said. "Of the 24 teams, two thirds of them will play only two games and the finalists will play five. Five games in four years. I don't think anyone can that is an large additional burden." No venue was mentioned for the inaugural new and improved tournament in 2021, but it is scheduled to take the slot currently reserved for the Confederations Cup, June 17 to July 4.

Matt Slater

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/club-world-cup-fifa-ignores-europe-new-24-team-tournament-starting-2021-a4093351.html

2019-03-15 18:40:00+00:00

sport

sport event

eveningstandard--2019-06-19--England vs Japan LIVE Fifa Womenaposs World Cup 2019 commentary stream latest score TV and line

eveningstandard

England vs Japan LIVE: Fifa Women&apos;s World Cup 2019 commentary stream, latest score, TV and lineups

Ellen White scored a brilliant double as England beat Japan 2-0 to finish top of Group D and set-up a last-16 clash against one of the best third-place sides. White followed her winner against Scotland with two first-time finishes from superb passes by Georgia Stanway and Karen Carney either side of half-time but England were fortunate to keep another clean sheet, as the 2011 winners missed a host of second-half chances. Phil Neville's side will now play Chile, Cameroon, China, New Zealand or Thailand in Valenciennes on Sunday afternoon. This was a very different test to the fiery, physical battle with Argentina last week but the first two-thirds of the game followed a similar script, as Phil Neville's team controlled possession but found an opposition goalkeeper determined to keep the score respectable in Ayaka Yamashita. Her string of fine saves ensured Japan, like Scotland and Argentina before them, entered the last half an hour with real hope of a point and England were lucky that substitute Yuika Sugasawa was not wearing her shooting boots. She missed a string of chances to level the score before White struck five minutes from time. Neville had called on his players to top the group with a statement victory and strike fear into the hearts of France and the USA, one of which will surely lie in wait if England reach the semi-final. Another unconvincing performance will not leave the hosts or holders concerned, however, and the way England faded in the second half, just as they did here against Scotland, will surely be a cause for concern for Neville. Ultimately, the Lionesses did the job and earned a measure of revenge for their semi-final defeat to Japan in Canada four years ago. Neville had promised to play his best team but, characteristically, he wrung the chances – eight from Argentina in total – with Fran Kirby, Nikita Parris, Beth Mead and Alex Greenwood among those to drop to the bench. The biggest surprise was the inclusion of 20-year-old midfielder Georgia Stanway, still a rookie at this level, but her encouraging first half performance suggested she could be a useful impact player in the knockouts. After an error-strewn opening 10 minutes for England, during which Karen Bardsley was forced to spectacularly tip Kumi Yokoyama's 25-yard free-kick onto the crossbar, Stanway took the game to Japan. The Man City player, who was the most advanced of Neville's midfield three, twice hit hopeful efforts towards goal, as if to remind her teammates where it was. Moments later, she made the breakthrough, turning slickly in midfield, holding off Hina Sugita and playing the perfect through ball for White, who followed her goal here against Scotland with another cute, first-time finish on 14 minutes. The goal brought England to life and Yamashita was forced to deny Jill Scott and Stanway in the space of two minutes, the latter a fine one-handed save from Stanway's half-volley. As the half wore on, England looked capable of racking up the "three- or four-nil win" Neville had demanded and Rachel Daly, who was full of purposeful running and clever cut-backs on the right wing, forced enough smart save from Yamashita after bulldozing her way onto a Mille Bright pass. Toni Duggan, who looked rusty after missing the opening two games with a thigh problem, dragged England's final chance of the half wide. England faded badly in the second half of the win over Scotland in the Nice humidity and Neville would have wanted to see another dominant 45 minutes. The early signs were encouraging, as Duggan forced another save from Yamashita after impressive link-up from Daley and Lucy Bronze down the right flank. That was about as good as it got for England in the second half, until White finished a fine move, involving Jill Scott and substitute Carney with a trademark strike off the near post. If Japan had a centre-forward half as lethal as White, they would surely have punished England long before, however. Sugasawa, who was introduced on the hour for Yokoyama, made an impact but she squandered no fewer than four fine openings, once forcing a brilliant last-ditch tackle from Steph Houghton before losing her footing at the crucial moment when clean through and then toeing a fine cross wide. The chances did not stop coming at 2-0, as she extended Bardsley. Neville gathered his players into another huddle on the pitch at full-time, where his message seemed less emotion and more stern than after Argentina. England got the job done but it was not convincing, and they will need to improve as the tournament progresses.

George Flood

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/japan-vs-england-live-stream-online-womens-world-cup-2019-score-commentary-tv-a4171261.html

2019-06-19 16:03:00+00:00

sport

sport event

eveningstandard--2019-06-24--Spain 1-2 USA Fifa Womenaposs World Cup 2019 Megan Rapinoe penalty double sets up France vs USWN

eveningstandard

Spain 1-2 USA, Fifa Women&apos;s World Cup 2019: Megan Rapinoe penalty double sets up France vs USWNT quarter-final

The United States needed two Megan Rapinoe penalties, one of them controversial, to beat Spain 2-1 on Monday and set up a quarter-final clash with hosts France at the women's World Cup. The winning spot-kick was subject to much debate, but Rapinoe converted it with 15 minutes left after her opening penalty had been cancelled out by Jennifer Hermoso early in the first half. After breezing through the group phase, the USWNT lacked inspiration and conceded their first goal of the tournament as Spain rose to the occasion in searing heat at the Stade Auguste-Delaune. France, who the U.S. will meet in Paris on Friday for a place in the last four, scraped through the last 16 with a 2-1 win against Brazil after extra time on Sunday. Can't see the Spain vs USA, Fifa Women's World Cup 2019 LIVE blog? Click here for the desktop version. Anybody with a valid TV licence can watch the match for free on BBC Two with coverage starting at 4:45pm. The same applies for online, with the match available to be streamed via BBC iPlayer.

Standard sport

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/spain-vs-usa-fifa-womens-world-cup-2019-live-stream-online-commentary-latest-score-tv-lineups-a4174786.html

2019-06-24 14:16:00+00:00

sport

sport event

eveningstandard--2019-06-27--France vs USA Fifa Womenaposs World Cup 2019 prediction LIVE stream how to watch on TVonline

eveningstandard

France vs USA, Fifa Women&apos;s World Cup 2019 prediction: LIVE stream, how to watch on TV/online, lineups, odds

World Cup holders USA take on hosts France in what is set to be a heated quarter-final clash in Paris on Friday night. Dubbed 'the final before the final', Friday's last-eight clash could end up being the defining match of the tournament with the two favourites meeting at Parc des Princes. Temperatures are expected to soar in the French capital with all-time temperature records for June being broken across Europe as the continent feels the effects of the 'Saharan' heat bubble. With such extreme conditions expected, Friday's knockout game could well come down to game management and keeping a cool head under pressure. Follow all the action with Standard Sport's LIVE blog! France coach Corinne Diacre feels that Eugenie Le Sommer can still deliver despite playing at "80 per cent" so far in the tournament. USWNT coach Jill Ellis has no fresh injury concerns to worry about. France have won all four of their games at the tournament and knocked Brazil out with a 2-1 win to lay down a marker for the rest of the competition. Predictably, the USA were in fearsome form in the group stages as they put 13 past Thailand, qualifying with three wins and no goals conceded. Spain gave the USWNT a real scare at the last-16 stage, but two Megan Rapinoe penalties saw them progress with a 2-1 victory. While France will fancy their chances after watching some careless defending from the holders, Ellis' side have the experience at this stage and should have enough about them to reach the semi-finals. Expect a tense first half, with the US to likely score a winner in the final third of the match. BBC Sport has live coverage of every match on television, via the red button and through the BBC Sport website. France vs USA will be broadcast live on BBC One with live coverage beginning from 7:30pm, and streamed online via the BBC iPlayer.

Tom Doyle

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/france-vs-usa-fifa-womens-world-cup-2019-prediction-live-stream-online-watch-tv-lineups-odds-a4177551.html

2019-06-27 13:27:00+00:00

sport

sport event

eveningstandard--2019-06-27--Norway vs England 2019 Fifa Womenaposs World Cup quarter-final prediction TV LIVE stream lineups

eveningstandard

Norway vs England 2019 Fifa Women&apos;s World Cup quarter-final prediction: TV LIVE stream, lineups, odds, tickets

England will play France or the USA in the World Cup semi-final after the brilliant Lucy Bronze inspired them to a 3-0 win over Norway here in Le Havre. The Lyon right-back was a class apart on the Normandy coast, creating England's first two goals for Jill Scott and Ellen White before scoring with a thunderous goal-of-the-tournament contender. A second consecutive World Cup semi-final leaves England well-placed to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, and they will watch Friday night's meeting between France and the US in Paris with interest. Phil Neville's Lionesses should have nothing to fear from the hosts or the holders, however, after their most fluid performance of the tournament. But Nikita Parris late penalty miss, her second in France, was a worry, while England must improve defensively after goalkeeper Karen Bardsley made a string of second-half saves to stretch their run of clean sheets to four games. For many of Neville's team, this was the biggest night of their careers but the manager had promised his side would rise to the occasion and relish the pressure. Sure enough, they outclassed Norway, who were missing Ballon d'Or winner Ada Hegerberg but still boasted plenty of talent. Bronze was the difference in front of a huge crowd of 21,111 but Parris, Scott and White also impressed, with the latter looking a fine bet to win the Golden Boot. The experienced Bronze helped banish any nerves inside two minutes, surging forward from right-back and breezing past Ingrid Engen on the way to the byline. Whether White was responsible for one of the finest dummies in World Cup history or a wild air-kick from Bronze's cutback is up for debate, but it didn't matter, with Scott lying in wait to finish cooly off the far post. It was England's fastest-ever World Cup goal and richly deserved for Scott, who has been among their outstanding performers in France. Her midfield partner Kiera Walsh looked less assured, however, and the Man City youngster was too loose in possession as Norway's leading light Caroline Graham Hansen and her support cast began to find space with alarming regularity. England's threat on the counter remained, however, and Parris should have made it 2-0 after 20 minutes when she ran onto Scott's pass, stepped inside her marker but blazed wildly over with her wrong foot. When White crashed a volley off the post from a fine position, you began to wonder if Neville's side would pay for their missed chances, particularly when Guro Reiten found herself in too much space and saw a shot blocked by Demi Stokes. Norway appealed for handball, but the strike had ricocheted off Stokes' body and was therefore not a penalty under the current laws. Moments later, Bardsley almost made a costly mistake when playing out from the back. When England stepped-up a gear again, it was no surprise that it came down the right flank, where Bronze was simply too good for her pursuers. Her pass released Parris who kept cool to present White with the simplest of tap-ins. It was her fifth goal at the finals, taking her level in the scoring charts with Australia's already-eliminated Sam Kerr and the US' Alex Morgan. If England thought the game was won, they were given a warning within two minutes of the restart when Millie Bright was forced into a last-ditch clearance after a fine Norway build-up. Bronze, clearly determined not to allow Norway back into the game, made sure of the win by running onto substitute Beth Mead's clever free-kick and smashing past Norway's Ingrid Hjelmseth first-time. It was right down the goalkeeper's throat but she had no chance. England thereafter switched off, as they have tended to do for periods of the second half in France, and Norway should really have scored at least once through substitute Lisa-Marie Utland. Steph Houghton cleared off the line from Utland following a mix-up between Bright and Bardsley and the goalkeeper made amends with a sharp stop from the forward before the she flicked a third opportunity wide from Maria Thorisdottir's long-range effort. England looked to have weathered the storm when Houghton was clattered by Hjelmseth at a freekick and the referee pointed to the spot – England's third penalty in France. The only significant negative of the match was then to come in Parris' penalty miss, which was far too straight and a nice height for Hjelmseth. Neville may have to consider a new taker after the winger also saw an effort saved against Argentina but he will not have too many other concerns as his Lionesses marched onwards to Lyon on Tuesday.

JOE KRISHNAN

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/norway-vs-england-prediction-fifa-womens-world-cup-2019-tv-live-stream-lineups-odds-tickets-a4176936.html

2019-06-27 06:56:00+00:00

sport

sport event

21stcenturywire--2019-03-16--Christchurch Terrorist Attack Many Unanswered Questions Remain

21stcenturywire

Christchurch Terrorist Attack: Many Unanswered Questions Remain

On Friday March 15, a suspected perpetrator of a massacre taking place at two mosques in Christchurch New Zealand is said to have killed 50 people in what is being regarded as one of the biggest mass shootings involving Muslim victims taking place in a western country. However, in the wake of New Zealand’s worst-ever domestic terror attack, a number of important unanswered questions still remain. As of Saturday, some 39 people remain hospitalized, 11 of who are still in critical condition in intensive care. A four-year-old child is also said to be in a critical condition and was flown to the children’s Starship hospital in Auckland. According to Christchurch hospital’s chief of surgery, Dr Greg Robertson, many of the victims may require multiple surgeries afterwards. The primary suspect in this anti-Muslim terrorist attack is said to 28 year old Brenton Harrison Tarrant (image, left), an Australian citizen from New South Wales. Tarrant has since been charged with murder and remanded in custody to appear again on April 5. According to news reports – he did not enter a plea. As of Saturday, Police have said they cannot confirm for certain that Tarrant was working alone, but they will likely have some definitive statement on this aspect of the case in the coming days. According to multiple reports, the main perpetrator of the massacre is said to have “teased on Twitter,” and ‘announced’ his attack on the message board 8chan (see image below). Brenton Tarrant is said to have authored a 74 page ‘Manifesto’ which seems to be mix of right-wing rhetoric, anti-immigrant polemics and some self-contradictory commentary about left vs right politics in the US, as well as an ode to various online ‘Alt-Right’ internet personalities like Candace Owens (he states, in his manifesto, that she had influenced him “above all”). Most western mainstream media outlets have already classifying his manifesto as a document for “white nationalism,” and “meant to troll” his political opposition. The shooter has also triggered a potential crisis for Silicon Valley when he livestreamed his attack on Facebook (see some clips from his livestream in Nine News clip below), where he shot and killed dozens worshipers during Friday prayer at two mosques. Predictably, this spectacle aspect of the event has prompted calls for increased regulations of video livestreaming on social media, and pressure on companies like Facebook to ‘do more to stop extremism’ and censor political content. On Friday, Facebook Inc shares plunged 5% to their lowest in nearly three months – at the very same time as a surprise departure by their Chief Product Officer Chris Cox. The Washington Post reported that there was in fact a second and third man allegedly involved with the attack, 18-year-old Daniel John Burrough, who was scheduled to appear in court Saturday and charged with “inciting racial hostility or ill-will.”  This same report also states that a third accomplice remained unidentified as of Friday evening, Eastern Time. However, according to a report by The Guardian, PM Ardern has said the investigation was ongoing but authorities believed there was only “one primary perpetrator”. CNN’s reporting on March 15 also clearly indicated there were multiple shooters: “One of the shooters appears to have livestreamed the attack on Facebook (FB). The disturbing video, which has not been verified by CNN, ran for nearly 17 minutes and purportedly shows the gunman walking into a mosque and opening fire.” Why did CNN report multiple shooters so early in the coverage of this event? If this was not the case, and there is only one shooter, then how could a news agency at large and well-resourced as CNN (or any other large outlet for that matter) misreport a detail so crucial to what is clearly the world’s biggest story? Not just guns in the shooter’s car, but also IED’s as well, one of which was deactivated by police and which was said to be attached to the “suspects” (plural – according to Washington Post) vehicle. “New Zealand police said they arrested three people in connection with the shootings. Authorities consider Brenton Harrison Tarrant, an Australian national, the primary suspect.” UPDATE: According to Police, 2 other suspects arrested, one man and one woman, appear to not have been involved in the shooting. The female has been released, but the male suspect remains in custody and a possible unrelated charge for unlawful possessing of a firearm. A fourth armed suspected was arrested whilst helping school children to safety. Police do not believe that either of these additional 3 suspects were involved in the incident. Watch the following report by Nine News Australia which shows some brief clips from the shooter’s infamous Facebook live stream of his rampage: Multiple guns are said to have been used in this attack, including two semi-automatic weapons and two shotguns, totally some five different firearms altogether. In her statement to the press, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stated that the suspect was “the offender was in possession of a gun license. I can tell you one thing right now – our gun laws will change.” Not long after, it was announced that New Zealand will ban semi-automatic weapons. See the full details of New Zealand’s new gun control proposal here. Parkland Student Flown in from US to Help Agitate for Gun Control As part of the political reaction to the Christchurch Attack,the gun control issue has been elevated again. In July 2018, student activists from the US were deployed to New Zealand to help generate media coverage for gun control issue. Reports state that some 28 students from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, USA, spent a week with New Zealand’s “Student Volunteer Army,” which was set up following the Christchurch earthquake in 2011. According to reports, Parkland survivors are coming “to share their experiences of living through a tragedy.” Student Volunteer Army president Josh Blackmore, told Morning Report that the high school students ‘were inspiring’ and that they were looking forward to welcoming them. This part of a global effort: “More than 800 protests were planned throughout the United States and abroad, with solidarity events taking place in Edinburgh, London, Geneva, Sydney and Tokyo.” Why was New Zealand chosen as a venue for the 2018 Parkland campaign? The Parkland School Shooting took place approximately one year ago in February 2018, with numerous students killed and injured in that attack. But the tragedy quickly descended into a media-driven political campaign with accusations of astroturfing as critics accusing Democratic Party operatives and media outlets like CNN and MSNBC of using the students not only to gain political leverage by using the gun issue in such an emotive setting – but also as a platform to help register Democratic Party voters for the upcoming 2018 Midterm Elections in the US. In addition to the confusion about multiple arrests, there are also competing narratives in the media about which extremist camp which protagonist Tarrant belongs to. Most media outlets are framing Tarrant as a “White Supremacist” due to the symbolism which has appeared in a loose collection of extremist writings, internet ranting, free association comments, and images – in what the media are calling a “manifesto”. Predictably, CNN’s Don Lemon and Max Boot were pinning the blame on Donald Trump. His weapon was scrawled with neo-Nazi symbols and the names of white right-wing extremists who had killed others because of their ethnicity or faith. A manifesto released online laid his motivations out to bare: to kill Muslim immigrants. Seven other people were killed at another mosque nearby, bringing the toll of the two attacks to 49 people, a brutal act of terrorism that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called “one of New Zealand’s darkest days.” However, a closer look into the symbolism in his paraphernalia reveals a real possibility of connections to right-wing fascist militant groups based in Ukraine – part of the same NeoNazi and fascist movement which was given political and material backing by the Obama Administration and John McCain in order to help carry out Washington’s violent coup in Kiev in February 2014. In this scenario, it’s possible that Tarrant could have been radicalized overseas and also online. . Apparently, Tarrant also made the reference “For Rotherham” on his ammunition clips (pictured above), a nod to the UK town of which was the sight of the ‘Rotherham Asian Grooming‘ sex abuse scandal, one of the stories championed by infamous British right-wing political actor Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon). Other references to right-wing criminal folklore were also made. Top ranked US talk radio host Rush Limbaugh has attempted to flip this theory, claiming that Tarrant is a leftist agitator trying to discredit the right: “There’s an ongoing theory that the shooter himself may in fact be a leftist who writes the manifesto and then goes out and performs the deed purposely to smear his political enemies, knowing he’s going to get shot in the process.” More than any other single mass shooting or terrorist event in recent years, the Christchurch event closely resembles the 2011 Norway Massacre carried out by right-wing Mason, Templar and Christian Zionist, Anders Breivik (Note: Breivik was also linked to Tommy Robinson, see here and here) were he massacred 77 members of Norway’s Young Labour Party at a Workers’ Youth League (AUF) summer camp (Note that Young Labor were dedicated supporters of Palestinian at that time and opposed the Israeli occupation). Just like Breivik’s 2012 Norway Attack,  Tarrant’s Christchurch event also featured two separate venues on the same day. In addition, both men are said to have prepared a manifesto before their operations. In Tarrant’s 74-page document posted online, he claims to want to create “an atmosphere of fear” which would incite Muslims and trigger a right-wing counter-reactions, but then turns to say “CONSERVATISM IS DEAD, THANK GOD.” This is just one of the many nonsensical twists and turns in this seemingly incoherent ‘manifesto.’  The document also pays homage to American Dylann Roof and other mass shooters, and seemed to infer that Tarrant himself had had received Breivik’s “blessing” for this latest mass shooting and terrorist attack in Christchurch. As 21WIRE reported back in 2011, the Norway Massacre was a catalyst for extremist right-wing fascism and  terrorism, and that future extremists like Tarrant would indeed be inspired by the bravado of Breivik. It should be noted also that in the case of Breivik, his initial processing and police interview was held in secret and not recorded, and therefore no public record of what was said can be analyzed. Similarly with the Christchurch Shooting, hearings on the Saturday were held in closed session with Judge Paul Keller denying any open, public access, supposedly “in the interest of safety” — an unusual move for New Zealand courts. Many of the high-profile mass shootings and terror attacks in recent years have featured a leading actor who was a “known wolf” – some one who was already ‘on the radar’ of the security services as a known extremist or informant, as opposed to a merely a lone wolf. This does not appear to be the case in Christchurch. According to reports, authorities in both Australia and New Zealand did not have Tarrant listed on any counter-terrorism watch list, despite the currently theory that he was planning the attack for several years.

21wire

https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/03/16/christchurch-terrorist-attack-many-unanswered-questions-remain/

2019-03-16 21:41:06+00:00

conflict, war and peace

act of terror

21stcenturywire--2019-05-04--Israels IDF Bombs Over 70 Terrorist Targets in New Raid on Gaza

21stcenturywire

Israel’s IDF Bombs Over 70 ‘Terrorist Targets’ in New Raid on Gaza

Earlier, the Israeli Defence Forces said that its tanks and aircraft had targeted 30 areas inside the Gaza Strip in response to 200 rocket launches from the territory on settlements in southern Israel earlier in the day. Israeli Air Force fighters are “continuing to strike at terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip,” carrying out attacks on “about 70” targets in the territory, the Israeli military has said in a communique released Saturday evening. According to the IDF, warplanes destroyed a 20-meter deep ‘attack tunnel’ created by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organisation, which had been dug under the Gaza-Israel border into Israeli territory and was intended to allow militants to carry out attacks. The IDF reportedly surveiled the elaborately built tunnel, which included several entrances and exits, before its destruction Saturday. An IDF spokesman accused the PIJ of working to destabilise the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, noting that “in practice, we see that Hamas is not succeeding in enforcing its rule on the PIJ.” The IDF reported intercepting dozens of rockets launched from the Gaza Strip earlier Saturday with its Iron Dome defence network, saying that several of the rockets made it through, with rocket fire hitting at least one house. The Israeli military response included targeting multiple launch sites, military compounds, and locations allegedly used to train militants and for the manufacture of weapons, with the strikes targeting Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, and its PIJ ally. Two Israeli civilians were reported injured in the rocket attack, with one Palestinian killed and four others wounded in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry. The escalation of tensions between Israel and Hamas follows violent confrontations Friday along the border area in which four Palestinians were killed and 51 wounded, with two Israeli troops also receiving injuries.

21wire

https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/05/04/israeli-idf-bombs-over-70-terrorist-targets-hit-in-gaza/

2019-05-04 20:04:27+00:00

conflict, war and peace

act of terror

bbc--2019-08-11--Norway mosque shooting probed as terror act

bbc

Norway mosque shooting probed as terror act

A shooting at a mosque in Norway is being investigated as a possible act of terrorism, police say. A gunman opened fire on the Al-Noor Islamic Centre, on the outskirts of the capital Oslo, on Saturday. One person in the mosque managed to overpower the gunman and was injured in the process. The suspect was arrested after the attack. Police also charged the suspect with murder after his 17-year-old stepsister was found dead in a separate location. The suspect has not yet been named, but police have described him as a white Norwegian citizen of "around 20 years old". He was said to be "from the area" where the mosque attack took place, in the town of Baerum. Rune Skjold, the acting chief of the police operation, said the suspect had been known to police before the incident but could not be described as someone with a "criminal background". Mr Skjold said the man appeared to hold "far-right" and "anti-immigrant" views and had expressed sympathy for Vidkun Quisling, the leader of Norway's collaborationist government during the Nazi occupation. Norwegian media reported that the suspect was believed to have posted on an online forum hours before the attack. The post seemingly praised the gunman who killed 51 people in mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, earlier this year. The post also made references to a "race war", the reports said. Officials say the suspect appears to have acted on his own. He did not want to "give an explanation to police". The suspect has been charged with attempted murder over the shooting. Only three people were inside the Al-Noor Islamic Centre at the time of the attack, preparing for the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Adha the following day, a spokesman said. Mosque director Irfan Mushtaq told local television network TV2 the suspect entered the building wearing a helmet and body armour, and armed with "two shotgun-like weapons and a pistol". The gunman then opened fire before being overpowered by 65-year-old congregation member Mohammad Rafiq, who suffered minor injuries in the process. "I suddenly heard shooting from outside. He started to fire towards the two other men," Mr Rafiq, a retired Pakistani Air Force officer, told Reuters news agency. Mr Rafiq said he grabbed the attacker, held him down and wrestled the weapons from him. The mosque had previously implemented extra security measures after the New Zealand attacks in March. Norway tightly controls the purchase, possession and use of firearms. Permission to acquire a gun has to be obtained from the local police chief and is only given to those of "sober habits" who have reasonable grounds to need a weapon, according to the US Library of Congress. Fully automatic weapons, some semi-automatic weapons and firearms disguised as other objects are banned, it says. The Small Arms Survey estimates that there are 1,537,000 firearms in civilian possession in Norway. Following the attack on Saturday, police said they had discovered the body of a young woman related to the suspect at a house in Baerum. They confirmed on Sunday that the woman was the suspect's 17-year-old stepsister. Officials are treating her death as suspicious and have opened an investigation. The alleged mosque attacker has been charged with murder in the case. The shooting has prompted debate over whether enough was being done to protect Norway's Muslim population. Mosque director Mr Mushtaq said the government needed to take action. "For so many years, the secret police says the Muslims are the biggest risk for this country, but if you look at those last two major incidents of terrorist activities, it's not Muslims who have done this," he said. Muslim organisation Islamic Council Norway described the attack as "the result of a long-lasting hate of Muslims that has been allowed to spread in Norway". It said authorities had not "taken this development seriously". Prime Minister Erna Solberg said on Twitter that Norway must fight hatred and anti-Muslim attitudes. In separate comments, she said security had been ramped up for Sunday's Eid celebrations and that tackling hate speech was a priority. "We are trying to combat this, but it's a challenge. I think it's a world-wide challenge in a sense," she said. Official estimates from 2016 said some 200,000 Muslims lived in Norway, which has a population of about 5 million.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49311482

2019-08-11 16:55:27+00:00

conflict, war and peace

act of terror

bbc--2019-10-08--German lorry attack in Limburg seen as 'act of terrorism'

bbc

German lorry attack in Limburg seen as 'act of terrorism'

An attack on motorists in the western town of Limburg is being investigated as terrorism, security sources have told German media. On Monday, a man hijacked a lorry and ploughed into eight vehicles waiting at a traffic light, injuring eight people. Seven were treated in hospital. Originally from Syria, the man has been living in Germany since 2015, local reports say. Public broadcaster ZDF quoted sources as saying the incident was being treated by investigators as having a "terrorist background", although Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said on Tuesday he could not yet say how the incident was being classified. Police searched a flat in Langen, south of Frankfurt, early on Tuesday and said it was linked to what had happened in Limburg, local reports said. Prosecutors are also investigating whether the attacker had any mental health concerns. The suspect was due to appear before a judge on Tuesday, reports the Frankfurter Neue Presse (FNP) newspaper. The owner of the stolen lorry told FNP that he had been dragged from his vehicle by the man, who had forced the door open. "What do you want from me?" the driver said he asked the man. "He didn't say a word. I asked him a again and then he dragged me out of the lorry." Another witness, Bettina Yeisley, described talking to the hijacker afterwards without realising he had driven the lorry. "I spoke to him. He was bleeding from his nose, his hands were bloody and his trousers torn. He said 'my whole body hurts.' I asked his name and he told me his name was Mohammed," she told the newspaper. Other German reports gave his name as Omar. Marius Hahn, the mayor of Limburg, said his thoughts were with the injured and their families. • Germany attacks: What is going on? Germany has been on high alert following several jihadist attacks in recent years. The most deadly was in December 2016 when a man drove a lorry into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people. Anis Amri, the Tunisian behind the attack, was shot and killed in Italy four days later.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49970807

Tue, 08 Oct 2019 12:30:13 GMT

conflict, war and peace

act of terror

bbcuk--2019-02-24--Man arrested in Leeds on suspicion of terrorist acts

bbcuk

Man arrested in Leeds on suspicion of terrorist acts

Counter-terrorism police in Leeds have arrested a man on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts. The 33-year-old was arrested on Saturday and is being held as part of a pre-planned operation into suspected extreme right-wing activity, West Yorkshire Police said. The force added that a property in Leeds was being searched by officers. Supt Chris Bowen said public safety was their "top priority". He added: "If you see or hear something that could be terrorist related, act on your instincts by reporting your concerns."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-47350058

2019-02-24 13:30:39+00:00

conflict, war and peace

act of terror

bbcuk--2019-09-10--Vincent Fuller White supremacist car park stabbing terrorist act

bbcuk

Vincent Fuller: White supremacist car park stabbing 'terrorist act'

A white supremacist who stabbed a teenager in what a judge described as a "terrorist act" has been jailed for more than 18 years. Vincent Fuller, 50, attacked Bulgarian Dimitar Mihaylov, 19, in Stanwell, Surrey, a day after a gunman attacked mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Kingston Crown Court heard Fuller, who admitted attempted murder, had set out to kill Muslims. On the night of 16 March, the court heard, Fuller "roamed the streets" in a violent rage "looking for a target". He initially armed himself with a Chelsea FC-branded baseball bat and went on the rampage. During the spree he tried to force his way into a house, swung the bat at cars and was heard shouting racist abuse. After the bat broke in half, Fuller returned home and armed himself with a knife. He then approached Mr Mihaylov, who was parked outside a branch of Tesco with his friend, and stabbed him through the open window. The court heard Fuller had twice shouted "You're going to die" and plunged a large kitchen knife towards his victim's neck. Mr Mihaylov suffered defensive wounds to his hands, and the knife clipped his neck, the court heard. "It was only by chance he was not killed," said judge Lodder, sentencing. Several witnesses heard Fuller screaming abuse during his "rampage", including one who reported him saying: "All Muslims should die. White supremacists rule. I'm going to murder a Muslim." In a Facebook post just before the spree, Fuller praised Christchurch gunman Brenton Tarrant, adding: "I am English, no matter what the government say kill all the non-English and get them all out of our of England." Judge Lodder told Fuller he was "motivated by the cause of white supremacy, and his personal anti-Muslim sentiments". "I find that it was your purpose to strike fear into the heart of people you described as non-English, in particular Muslims," he said. The judge added: "It is immaterial that there is no evidence that you were a member of, or subscribed to, to any particular group or organization. "In my judgement a terrorist-related offence may be committed by a person acting alone, on his own initiative, and without any significant planning. In a police interview, Fuller, who has a British bulldog tattoo, denied being racist and said he could not remember what he had done. After the attack he tested positive for cannabis and alcohol and told detectives he had drunk a large bottle of cider and three cans of strong Special Brew lager. Fuller, of Viola Avenue, carried out his attack the day after the murder of 51 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand by a white supremacist, who livestreamed most of the shootings online. A video excerpt of the Christchurch massacre was found on Fuller's mobile phone, the court heard. Fuller had previously admitted further charges of carrying a weapon, affray and racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress. He was jailed for 18 years and nine months at Kingston Crown Court on Tuesday, with an additional five-year extended sentence.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-49652977

2019-09-10 15:26:35+00:00

conflict, war and peace

act of terror

birminghammail--2019-10-11--Manchester Arndale terror suspect detained under Mental Health Act after shoppers stabbed

birminghammail

Manchester Arndale terror suspect detained under Mental Health Act after shoppers stabbed

A terror suspect arrested after three people were stabbed at Manchester's Arndale shopping centre has been detained under the Mental Health Act. A man armed with a large knife walked into the Exchange Court area of the building at 11.15am on Friday and began lunging at shoppers. A man in his 50s, a 19-year-old woman and another woman were rushed to hospital with stab wounds. None of the injuries were thought to be life-threatening and both women were said to be stable, while two more women were also treated by medics. Two unarmed police community support officers attempted to confront the assailant who chased them as they called for urgent assistance. Witnesses described a scene of horror as shoppers sought refuge in stores. Within five minutes, the knifeman was challenged and detained by armed officers in nearby Corporation Street at the side of Marks & Spencer. A 40-year-old man from the Manchester area was arrested on suspicion of assault and then re-arrested on suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of an act of terrorism. Police later said he was detained under the Mental Health Act following an assessment by specialist doctors. Assistant chief constable Russ Jackson, of Greater Manchester Police, said: "We do not know the motivation for this terrible attack. It appears random, is certainly brutal and of course extremely frightening for anyone who witnessed it. "At this time we do not believe that there is anyone else involved in this attack but we will be constantly keeping this under review. "We have specially trained officers supporting those injured from the attack. We'll have increased patrols, including armed patrols, in the city centre this weekend." He appealed for anyone who was in the Arndale at the time to send any images or footage taken from the scene via the force's website. One shop worker, who gave his name only as Jordan, 23, told the PA news agency: "A man was running around with a knife lunging at multiple people, one of which came into my store visibly shaken with a small graze. "Soon after, security staff told all retail staff to close their doors and move the public to the back of the stores." Freddie Houlder, 22, from Market Drayton, was in the centre when he heard "a load of screams just outside" the shop he was in. He said a woman then came into the shop and told others "a guy just ran past the shop and tried to stab me". Mr Houlder added: "Luckily she had quite a thick jacket - she thought originally it was a fake knife because of how easily it grazed off but police came in and said it was a real knife and she burst in to tears." The shopping centre is just a few hundred yards from the Manchester Arena where 22 people were killed in May 2017 when Salman Abedi detonated a suicide bomb following an Ariana Grande concert. Last New Year's Eve, three people including a police officer were seriously injured after a 25-year-old man launched a knife attack on passers-by. He was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and will face trial in November. In 1996, the Arndale was damaged in a major bomb attack by the IRA in which a 1,500-kilograms device loaded on a lorry was detonated on Corporation Street. More than 200 people were injured in the explosion, although there were no fatalities.

newsdesk@birminghamlive.co.uk (David Bentley)

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/uk-news/manchester-arndale-latest-terror-suspect-17074232

Fri, 11 Oct 2019 22:19:41 +0000

conflict, war and peace

act of terror

breitbart--2019-11-15--Reports: Leftists Committing 'Acts of Terror' to Force Bolivians to Riot

breitbart

Reports: Leftists Committing 'Acts of Terror' to Force Bolivians to Riot

Residents of poor communities in El Alto, Bolivia, are facing threats of violence or “fines” they cannot afford if they do not join socialist riots against the interim conservative government that replaced ex-President Evo Morales, local media reported on Friday. The Bolivian newspaper Página Siete republished an anonymous message from the poor communities in the outskirts of El Alto, a socialist stronghold, in which locals complained that their neighbors were threatening to burn down entire neighborhoods. Another Bolivian newspaper, El Deber, reported that criminal gangs were going door-to-door demanding “fines” from families that did not take the streets to loot and ransack homes and businesses. Morales, of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party, resigned on Sunday following the publication of evidence compiled by the Organization of American States (OAS) of fraud in the October 20 presidential election. Morales vied for an unconstitutional fourth term and won after the servers counting the votes shut down and diverted the count to an unknown private server, the OAS found. Morales resigned voluntarily, then fled to Mexico, where he claimed to be the victim of a right-wing “coup.” Jeanine Áñez, a conservative senator, replaced Morales as president following the abandonment of dozens of MAS politicians, including those above Áñez in the chain of command, of the country. In response, thousands of allegedly indigenous socialists have staged violent riots, many marching from El Alto to nearby La Paz, the executive seat of government, this week. El Deber found evidence that the mob burned down and looted at least five police stations on their march to La Paz. Police first began to counter the claim that these protesters were indigenous, organic supporters of Morales with a series of arrests of Cubans, Venezuelans, and others paying off protesters and building explosives. Now, Bolivian media are hearing from the victims of these socialist operatives, who say they do not want to participate in the riots but have no choice. “Friends, I can’t anymore with this situation. Here in El Alto, we are suffering too much under threats from our own El Alto brothers because we don’t support ‘the struggle’ that is supposedly for all of us,” a Whatsapp neighbor group text message published by Página Siete reads. “With the excuse of the Wiphala they want to invade our neighborhood … we are having a truly bad time.” The Wiphala is a legal flag of the country of Bolivia that represents its 36 indigenous communities. A video circulated on social media this week showing unidentified people burning it, which many considered an act of racism. Members of the socialist groups marching on La Paz told reporters that they are doing so to avenge the Wiphala. Página Siete reported that rioters are committing “acts of terror” with the help of “foreign operatives” to intimidate the poor of El Alto into joining the riots. Among the “acts of terror” committed in La Paz, the newspaper reported, was the burning of multiple private homes of local opposition officials and the destruction of a third of the public bus service’s fleet. MAS supporters also reportedly attempted to destroy the headquarters of various public utilities and broadcast networks. In the latter case, rioters attempted to break the satellite towards at the cable stations to interrupt broadcasts, the newspaper reported. Página Siete also cited a security expert who said the socialists “hired Peruvian peasants to train the Bolivians” in how to cause destruction, though he did not elaborate on that claim. The Bolivian newspaper El Deber reported that some MAS sympathizers did not threaten El Alto’s poor with violence, but with even more poverty, imposing “fines” on families who did not join the protests. According to the newspaper, officials threatened to make it more difficult for families to procure food and other basic goods and threatened them with a 100-150 bolivianos ($14.46-$21.69) fine. El Deber cites conversations with eight El Alto locals who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from socialists who, they say, are using the Federation of Neighborhood Councils-El Alto to trickle down orders block by block to get people protesting. “In [the neighborhood of] Ventilla, for example, they were told that there are three areas where the government built public housing. To the families living there, they said that, since the government built the houses, the new government will take their homes and leave them with nothing,” the newspaper reported. This is reportedly why the residents of those buildings marched. In another lower-class neighborhood, local officials supportive of Morales refused to offer basic infrastructure services like water and claimed that, since Morales had resigned, there would be no more services. Yet another report indicated that the rioters were attempting to shut down all access to gasoline. Police warned on Friday that MAS leaders are heavily armed and possessing tear gas and a host of firearms used by trained snipers in Yapacaní. Authorities in Bolivia have arrested nearly ten foreigners organizing violent riots in the country. Among the first identified was Facundo Molares Schoenfeld, an Argentine member of the communist terrorist group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Police officials told reporters that they had reason to believe Schoenfeld was hired by socialists within the country to arm and train local Bolivians to commit acts of terror. Schoenfeld had been missing since 2017 following the “peace deal” between the FARC and the government of Colombia. Bolivian officials have also revealed the arrests of four Cuban nationals carrying thousands of dollars in cash, arrested after neighborhood watch groups told police that they were handing out money to people in exchange for committing acts of violence. Several of those arrested claimed they had the money to pay slave doctors operating in the Cuban medical system in Bolivia. On Thursday, Bolivia’s new foreign minister announced that, after a conversation with her Cuban counterpart, the communist regime would withdraw over 700 agents working within the country. Ten people have died in clashes since protests began following the October 20 election.

Frances Martel

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/Sy1nBSYtatA/

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 21:40:45 +0000

conflict, war and peace

act of terror

channel4uk--2019-03-17--New Zealand terror suspect acting alone police say

channel4uk

New Zealand terror suspect ‘acting alone’, police say

The bodies of some of the 50 Christchurch victims are due to be released to their families soon. Police say they now believe the man charged with murder, 28 year old Brenton Tarrant, was acting alone. But as New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern repeated her vow to ban the kind of weapons he used, Channel 4 News has found gun retailers doing a brisk trade.

Jonathan Miller

https://www.channel4.com/news/new-zealand-terror-suspect-acting-alone-police-say

2019-03-17 20:42:15+00:00

conflict, war and peace

act of terror

infowars--2019-12-06--Rep. Matt Gaetz: Pensacola Shooting Was an “Act of Terrorism”

infowars

Rep. Matt Gaetz: Pensacola Shooting Was an “Act of Terrorism”

Rep. Matt Gaetz has confirmed that the shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola, carried out by Saudi national Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, was an “act of terrorism.” According to authorities, the gunman killed three people and injured eleven others after opening fire this morning. Alshamrani was training at the base as an aviation student. It is yet to be confirmed whether he was a member of the Saudi military. According to Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, the shooting is clearly an act of terrorism. “If this were a murder, it would typically be investigated by NCIS…but this was not a murder,” Gaetz told ABC News. “This was an act of terrorism and as we speak the investigation is being handed over from the NCIS to the FBI – that is the signal that this will now be treated by our government as an act of terrorism, not murder,” he added. My voice is being silenced by free speech-hating Silicon Valley behemoths who want me disappeared forever. It is CRUCIAL that you support me. Please sign up for the free newsletter here. Donate to me on SubscribeStar here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown.

Paul Joseph Watson

https://www.infowars.com/rep-matt-gaetz-pensacola-shooting-was-an-act-of-terrorism/

Fri, 06 Dec 2019 19:18:44 +0000

conflict, war and peace

act of terror

21stcenturywire--2019-01-16--REPORTS US Soldiers Killed in Apparent ISIS Bombing in Manbij Syria

21stcenturywire

REPORTS: US Soldiers Killed in Apparent ‘ISIS Bombing’ in Manbij, Syria

A bomb blast has struck near a US-led coalition patrol killing and injuring and killing civilian and US-led coaltion military personnel in Syria’s northern city of Manbij today, according to multiple witnesses. According to reports, casualties are believed to include at least 16 people, including at least 2 US soldiers. The death of US soldiers was also confirmed by CBS News. Image from video supplied by Hawar News, for Kurdish ANHA news agency, showing aftermath of restaurant bombing in Manbij, Syria, Jan. 16, 2019. Initial photos and videos were provided by a local Kurdish news site to the western mainstream media, but only showed two mutilated bodies, and bodies on the ground with people gathered around them, as well as damage to a building and vehicles, and blood smears on a pillar. According to Reuters, two witnesses described the blast as follows, “An explosion hit near a restaurant, targeting the Americans, and there were some forces for the Manbij Military Council with them.” RELATED: Convenient Timing for ‘ISIS Attack’ on US Servicemen in Syria Oddly, rather than wait for official conformations, a US coalition spokesperson cited “open-source reports” (aka internet chatter) of the incident. The timing of this event is uncanny, as only a few days earlier, sweeping proclamations were being made regarding ‘the final defeat of ISIS, with U.S.-backed forces in Syria announcing to the mainstream media about how Islamic State is in its ‘final moments.’ That signal of victory against the terrorist group in Syria was meant to dovetail with the imminent US withdrawal of troops from Washington’s Operation Inherent Resolve – an illegal military occupation of northeastern Syria. However, today’s event will almost certainly trigger calls in the US for a reversal of President Trump decision to pull-out of Syria – as war hawks and CIA pundits will be lined-up on the various panels across in the US media, all heralding in unison how today’s ‘US sacrifice’ should be regarded as proof that ISIS is not defeated in Syria which therefore justifies not only a continued illegal US occupation in Syria, but an expand its footprint and air patrol activities in the elusive “fight against ISIS” which Washington claims to have been doing since placing military assets on the ground there in 2016. SEE ALSO: ‘What about the Kurds?!’ Getting a Proper Grip on Turks, Americans & Kurds in Syria Today’s events are even more timely considering how it was revealed yesterday that President Donald Trump had reassured Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a phone conversation that the U.S. was in the process of pulling its troops out of Syria, this after a raucous Tweet storm between the two leaders just hours earlier. Washington is insisting that ‘the Kurds,’ namely US-backed SDF proxy militias and YPG militias, are to be protected following any US withdrawal, but after today’s high-profile ISIS attack, the withdrawal may be delayed indefinitely. According to White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, President Trump has been briefed on the today’s bombing. “The president has been fully briefed and we will continue to monitor the ongoing situation in Syria,” said Sanders in a statement, referring any further questions to the US Department of Defense.

21wire

https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/01/16/reports-us-soldiers-killed-in-apparent-isis-bombing-in-manbij-syria/

2019-01-16 15:14:25+00:00

conflict, war and peace

armed conflict

21stcenturywire--2019-04-26--Intl Monitors US Coalition Killed Over 1600 Civilians During Bombing of Raqqa Syria

21stcenturywire

Int’l Monitors: US Coalition Killed Over 1,600 Civilians During Bombing of Raqqa, Syria

According to a new report issued by an independent conflict monitoring group, the US-led bombing campaign waged in 2017 to ‘liberate’ the Syrian city of Raqqa from the Islamic State (ISIS), ended up killing more than 1,600 civilians – a figure that is 10 times as high as the number of dead claimed by the US-led coalition. These numbers are according to reports submitted by Amnesty International, and Airwars, a London-based conflict monitoring group formed in 2014 to study the impact of the US-led air campaigns against target nations. After 18 months of researching civilian deaths, including two months on the ground in Raqqa, the group have finally released their findings, and are urging that the US-led coalition “end almost two years of denial” about the true death tolls resulting from their bombing runs in Syria, and Iraq. “Our conclusive finding after all this is that the US-led coalition’s military offensive [US, UK and French forces] directly caused more than 1,600 civilian deaths in Raqqa,” said researchers. Previously, US officials downplayed, and were likely lying – about having taken “great care to avoid civilian casualties” and also made the erroneous claims that they investigate any accusations regarding their lack of precision when seeking out their alleged “ISIS targets.” Back in 2017, a spokesperson for U.S. CENTCOM told UK newspaper The Independent, “The Coalition takes all allegations of civilian casualties seriously and assesses all credible allegations of possible civilian casualties. Coalition forces work diligently and deliberately to be precise in our airstrikes.” They added, “Coalition forces comply with the law of armed conflict and take all reasonable precautions during the planning and execution of airstrikes to reduce the risk of harm to civilians.” “The Coalition respects human life and is assisting partner forces in their effort to liberate their land from Isis while safeguarding civilians. Our goal is always for zero civilian casualties.” Those statements now appear to be patently false, based on the review of the new data and a lack of any visible due diligence by the Pentagon. More crucially, for the last 2 years, the western mainstream media never seriously challenged any of the US military’s spotty claims, nor were the media interested in mounting any investigation into what now appears to be bona fide international war crimes. Since 2014, an international coalition led by the US has been giving military support to both the Iraqi government and their own illegal paramilitary creation a Syrian, a Kurdish-led confab called the “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF), who managed to re-captured Raqqa in late 2017 after a five-month air bombing campaign led by the US. It was known by Amnesty last year that evidence existed that the US-led coalition’s air and artillery strikes in Raqqa had violated international law by killing civilians in large numbers, but no major estimate was given until now.

21wire

https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/04/26/intl-monitors-us-coalition-killed-over-1600-civilians-during-bombing-of-raqqa-syria/

2019-04-26 11:43:54+00:00

conflict, war and peace

armed conflict