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EU Could Target Peanut Butter, Orange Juice, Whiskey In Trump Trade Row

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By Daniela Vincenti

(EurActiv) — The EU warned US President Donald Trump on Wednesday to step back from the brink of a trade war or it would hit flagship US products, such as peanut butter and whiskey.

EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström said a full-on transatlantic trade war was “not in anybody’s interest.”

“We are eager not to escalate this,” she told journalists on Wednesday (7 March). “We do not want this to go out of proportion, but … if it does happen we will have to take measures to protect European jobs.”

“Certain types of bourbon are on the list as are other items such as peanut butter, cranberries, orange juice,” the Trade Commissioner added.

The EU is also looking at “safeguard” measures to protect its industry — restricting the bloc’s imports of steel and aluminium to stop foreign supplies flooding the European market, which is allowed under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

Trump plans to impose a duty of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum to counter cheap imports, especially from China, that he says undermine US industry and jobs. On Tuesday, Trump lashed out at the EU trade rules saying the bloc had made it ‘impossible’ for US firms and threatened to ramp up tariffs on EU cars.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday threatened to hit big-name US brands such as Harley Davidson motorbikes and Levi’s jeans with import duties, prompting Trump to fire back a threat to tax cars from the EU.

Juncker, who on Wednesday met Lakshmi Mittal, the boss of the world’s top steelmaker ArcelorMittal, said last week the EU would “react firmly” to protect European industry.

“In a so-called trade war … nobody wins, one generally finds losers on both sides,” International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday, adding that a trade war would take a “formidable” toll on global economic growth.

Malmström’s and Lagarde ’s call for caution was echoed by German Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries, who said: “I hope Trump changes his mind … It’s very important that there are advocates for this in the White House. That’s why I’m worried about the latest signals coming from the USA.”

Britain, keen to foster global trade relations as it prepares to leave the EU, said it was “very disappointed” by Trump’s plan.

In Geneva, China raised its concerns at the World Trade Organization, where 17 other WTO members also voiced misgivings.

“Many said they feared tit-for-tat retaliation which could spiral out of control, damaging the global economy and the multilateral trading system,” WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell said.

A trade official quoted Canada’s WTO ambassador as saying: “We fear that the United States may be opening a Pandora’s Box that we would not be able to close.”

 

In his first tweet on Wednesday, Trump showed no sign of backing down, saying the United States had lost more than 55,000 factories and 6 million manufacturing jobs and let its trade deficit soar since the first Bush administration.


Smart Glass Made Better And Cheaper

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Someday we won’t need curtains or blinds on our windows, and we will be able to block out light–or let it in–with just the press of a button. At least that’s what Keith Goossen, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Delaware, hopes.

Goossen and Daniel Wolfe, who earned a doctoral degree from UD last year, developed panels that can switch between allowing light in and blocking it out. This “smart glass” technology could be utilized in eco-friendly windows, windshields, roof panes and building envelopes, absorbing light and heat in the winter and reflecting it away in the summer.

Although Goossen isn’t the first scientist to make smart glass, his team’s invention is about one-tenth the price of other versions. It is also more transparent in its transparent state and more reflective in its reflective state than competitors, he said.

Goossen shared his latest smart glass prototype on Monday, March 5 in a keynote address at the SPIE Smart Materials and Nondestructive Evaluation for Energy Systems IV conference in Denver.

Simple idea, clear results

The principles behind this smart glass technology are surprisingly simple. It starts with two sheets of plastic separated by a thin cavity. The plastic contains tiny cube-shaped structures that make the material retroreflective, meaning that it bounces light back to its source, like a bicycle reflector does.

Then the chamber is filled with a fluid called methyl salicylate–an inexpensive wintergreen extract that happens to be the active ingredient in some over-the-counter pain relief creams. This liquid has optical properties, or interaction with visible light, that match the optical properties of the retroreflective plastic. When combined, the light can pass through, and the system becomes transparent. This is called refractive index matching.

Goossen’s smart glass system can switch from transparent to reflective a thousand times without degrading, as shown in a paper published late last year in the journal Optics Express.

At this week’s conference, Goossen revealed a new, improved design.

Instead of utilizing cubes, this smart glass relies on the total internal reflection of one-dimensional structures layered perpendicularly. It is highly reflective at up to a 60-degree angle of incidence, an improvement over the previous prototype.

“It performed better than we thought it would based on our theoretical understanding,” he said.

Goossen uses 3-D printing to make his prototypes, but this technology could eventually be manufactured at a high volume and low cost using injection molding. He is now testing his system over a wide range of temperatures to see how it performs, especially as it approaches temperatures that could cause the fluid within to freeze, which will be between 3 and 16 degrees Fahrenheit, depending upon the eventual fluid that is used. Every time Goossen talks to a roomful of engineers about this project, hands go up with lots of questions.

“There is a lot of interest in the capability this might represent,” he said.

Commercialization may eventually follow–something Goossen is already well versed in. An author of 82 issued patents, he founded a startup company in 2001 that was later acquired. He passes his knowledge along to students as a co-teacher of High Technology Entrepreneurship, a course for undergraduate and graduate students that focuses on financial, legal, scientific and engineering issues facing tech startups.

Goossen also encourages students to be curious. This research project started with a hunch, which can be the impetus for scientific discovery.

“Sometimes it’s just an instinct about what might be interesting,” said Goossen.

Sinking Land Will Exacerbate Flooding From Sea Level Rise In Bay Area

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Rising sea levels are predicted to submerge many coastal areas around San Francisco Bay by 2100, but a new study warns that sinking land – primarily the compaction of landfill in places such as Treasure Island and Foster City – will make flooding even worse.

Using precise measurements of subsidence around the Bay Area between 2007 and 2011 from state-of-the-art satellite-based synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, and Arizona State University mapped out the waterfront areas that will be impacted by various estimates of sea level rise by the end of the century.

They found that, depending on how fast seas rise, the areas at risk of inundation could be twice what had been estimated from sea level rise only.

Previous studies, which did not take subsidence into account, estimated that between 20 and 160 square miles (51 to 413 square kilometers) of San Francisco Bay shoreline face a risk of flooding by the year 2100, depending on how quickly sea levels rise.

Adding the effects of sinking ground along the shoreline, the scientists found that the area threatened by rising seawater rose to between 48 and 166 square miles (125 to 429 square kilometers).

“We are only looking at a scenario where we raise the bathtub water a little bit higher and look where the water level would stand,” said senior author Roland Bürgmann, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science. “But what if we have a 100-year storm, or king tides or other scenarios of peak water-level change? We are providing an average; the actual area that would be flooded by peak rainfall and runoff and storm surges is much larger.”

The data will help state and local agencies plan for the future and provide improved hazard maps for cities and emergency response agencies.

“Accurately measuring vertical land motion is an essential component for developing robust projections of flooding exposure for coastal communities worldwide,” said Patrick Barnard, a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park. “This work is an important step forward in providing coastal managers with increasingly more detailed information on the impacts of climate change, and therefore directly supports informed decision-making that can mitigate future impacts.”

The low-end estimates of flooding reflect conservative predictions of sea level rise by 2100: about one and a half feet. Those are now being questioned, however, since ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica are melting faster than many scientists expected. Today, some extreme estimates are as high as five and a half feet.

That said, the subsidence – which the geologists found to be as high as 10 millimeters per year in some areas – makes less of a difference in extreme cases, Bürgmann noted. Most of the Bay Area is subsiding at less than 2 millimeters per year.

“The ground goes down, sea level comes up and flood waters go much farther inland than either change would produce by itself,” said first author Manoochehr Shirzaei, a former UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow who is now an assistant professor in ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration and a member of NASA’s Sea Level Change planning team.

Shirzaei and Bürgmann will publish their findings in the online journal Science Advances.

Combining InSAR and GPS

InSAR, which stands for interferometric synthetic aperture radar, has literally changed our view of Earth’s landscape with its ability to measure elevations to within one millimeter, or four-hundredths of an inch, from Earth orbit. While it has been used to map landscapes worldwide – Bürgmann has used InSAR data to map landslides in Berkeley and land subsidence in Santa Clara County – this may be the first time someone has combined such data with future sea level estimates, he said. The team used continuous GPS monitoring of the Bay Area to link the InSAR data to sea level estimates.

“Flooding from sea level rise is clearly an issue in many coastal urban areas,” Bürgmann said. “This kind of analysis is probably going to be relevant around the world, and could be expanded to a much, much larger scale.”

In the Bay Area, one threatened area is Treasure Island, which is located in the Bay midway between San Francisco and Oakland and was created by landfill for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. It is sinking at a rate of one-half to three-quarters of an inch (12 to 20 millimeters) per year.

Projections for San Francisco International Airport show that when land subsidence is combined with projected rising sea levels, water will cover approximately half the airport’s runways and taxiways by the year 2100. Parts of Foster City were built in the 1960s on engineered landfill that is now subsiding, presenting a risk of flooding by 2100.

Not all endangered areas are landfill, however. Areas where streams and rivers have deposited mud as they flow into the Bay are also subsiding, partly because of compaction and partly because they are drying out. Other areas are subsiding because of groundwater pumping, which depletes the aquifer and allows the land to sink. In the early 20th century, the Santa Clara Valley at the south end of San Francisco Bay subsided as much as nine feet (three meters) due to groundwater depletion, though that has stabilized with restrictions on pumping.

Shirzaei noted that flooding is not the only problem with rising seas and sinking land. When formerly dry land becomes flooded, it causes saltwater contamination of surface and underground water and accelerates coastal erosion and wetland losses.

Sri Lanka: Police, Armed Forces Granted Powers To Arrest Troublemakers

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Sri Lanka’s security forces, including the police, army and other officers have a legal responsibility to ensure that these emergency regulations are not misused.

The emergency measures are to be implemented with minimum disruption to public life and enforced with genuine intentions and to be enforced impartially regardless of their religious, ethnic or political affiliations, said ASP Gunasekara.

Responding to allegations that the Police did not act soon enough to contain the situation in Teldeniya, the ASP remarked that the police did arrest 24 persons with regard to the clashes but a special police team has been sent to Kandy to investigate into conduct of the police during the whole incident, “They will find out if the Police was at fault,” he said.

He however believed that through the Police curfew, mobile and foot patrols and the assistance of the army, they have been successful in containing the situation, “Not allowing the violence to spread was our main focus”, said the ASP.

The public has been asked to inform the nearest Police station of any attempts to arise.

Winter Olympics In The Nuclear Shadow – Analysis

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By Sheel Kant Sharma*

Mixed signals have come from the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics but they are once again wrapped in fierce and heightened rhetoric; from Washington, about the dire consequences of North Korean defiance in word and deed, and Pyongyong calling sanctions and “all blockades” (of ships) acts of war. The thawing at the conclusion of the Winter Olympics in South Korea is prominently traced to President Moon who took the initiative and invited the North Koreans to participate, warmly welcomed them, and held meetings with their titular leader along with Kim Jong-un’s sister at the inaugural ceremony, and with the former North Korean spy chief Kim Yong-chul at the closing ceremony. The US vice-president, and the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, added greater value through their presence, albeit maintaining the standoff with North Korea.

The net outcome of whatever overt or covert diplomacy was at play in Pyeongchang is couched in paradoxical messages. First came word about North Korean willingness to talk with the US after Moon’s meeting with General Kim Yong-chul. Then appeared the latest advice from Seoul to the US to “lower the threshold for dialogue,” and to North Korea to “show willingness to denuclearise” for talks to make headway towards defusing the situation. And the latest from Washington, with President Trump expressing his willingness to talk with North Korea but “only under the right conditions” at meeting of state governors.

The atmosphere for talks already shows the severe effects of the harsh new US sanctions just announced on North Korea, including on “ships registered in China” in order to maintain maximum pressure, and Trump’s warning that should sanctions fail, phase two of US action may be “very, very unfortunate for the world.” The angry Chinese reaction that this would harm cooperation with North Korea coupled with North Korea calling new sanctions ‘acts of war’ and rejecting any talks about its nuclear weapons bespeak of troubles that lie ahead for diplomacy.

However, not all avenues are closed, given that South Korean president remains open to the invitation from the North for an inter-Korean summit in May. In addition, if a preliminary dialogue between the US and North Korea were to begin as averred by both sides, it might give cause to extend suspension of US-Korea joint military exercises until a possible summit. That Moon’s homily to the US and North Korea was after his meeting with the Chinese vice-premier, who also attended the closing ceremony, may strengthen the view that both Beijing and Seoul are together in tapping the diplomatic openings given by the Winter Olympics. Skeptics in the US voice fears that this Beijing-Seoul commonality of interest and Moon’s warming up to North Korea may have the effect of loosening the US-South Korea alliance. So, what are the chances of a possible headway at this juncture?

Can Washington and Seoul countenance at some point a mutation of the double freeze proposed by Russia and China in the course of the tension-prone developments since January 2017? Can a freeze, as a preliminary step, be reached on further US sanctions or their further implementation (or lifting of the latest sanctions, as China has demanded) in exchange for no further nuclear and missile tests and provocations by North Korea? North Korea’s diplomatic aims from heightened brinkmanship so far remain enigmatic as well as suspect due to their past record. Be that as it may, will a relaxation in its stand and the ensuing inter-Korean thaw facilitate resumption of dialogue if its nuclear weapons were not under the axe to begin with – notwithstanding US insistence on denuclearisation? White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders stated that, “denuclearisation must be the result of any dialogue with North Korea.” The finer print of these various assertions might reveal some space for traction away from the stalemate. At what stage, if at all, will US threats about dire consequences persuade China to draw some red lines with regard to Jong-un? Can there be, in principle, a realistic threshold below which military action is conceivable and if so, might that impel China to move to more action to defuse the situation? (Trump in his latest expressions has praised China.)

In fact, none of the redeeming features in an analysis of the Pyeongchang outcome would be strangers to Korean history. Jimmy Carter’s diplomacy progressed without North Korea accepting all the conditions of that time; Bill Clinton tried his best to make a breakthrough in the last years of his presidency – including Albright’s visit to North Korea and the then South Korean president’s Sunshine Policy; the Six Party Talks struggled on and off despite further setbacks; and the whole policy of strategic patience which, though formally dumped, still hides in the background even as Trump cracks the whip. The avoidance of a nuclear exchange was the métier of diplomacy – as during the Cold War at several extremely frightening junctures.

As for the uniqueness of the present crisis, the North Koreans in their threats to the US mainland are nowhere near Russia and China, whom the new US Nuclear Posture Review darkly paints in adversarial terms. Thus, unlike the two-person zero-sum game that Cold War strategic crises comprised, this time there are more actors with axes to grind, even if not as overt participants. A US comparatively weaker than what it was during previous crisis situations in the Korean Peninsula is a fact of life. At the same time, there are considerable stakes for a rising China in keeping the situation from boiling over. And Kremlin’s denial notwithstanding Russia is coming under fire from Washington particularly in regard to ducking UN sanctions. So, while the rise of hostile talk and angry exchanges do persist, there is also a plurality of stakeholders, who seem to be pushing the envelope, to avoid an outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula and its unintended consequences.

* Sheel Kant Sharma
Former Permanent Representative of India to the UN Office in Vienna & the IAEA

Senate Democrats Offer Welcome Alternative Infrastructure Plan – Statement

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The Senate Democrat’s new infrastructure proposal is a welcome alternative to the Administration’s proposal earlier this year. Over the next ten years, the plan would fund a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure and job creation.

The new proposal, the Jobs and Infrastructure Plan for American Workers, cuts in half the 10-year investment gap the American Society of Civil Engineers sees as necessary to restore the nations’ infrastructure. As one of the wealthiest countries in the world, the United States has the capacity to provide the funding for necessary modernization and repairs to our roads and bridges, water and sewage systems, and public transportation. The Jobs and Infrastructure Plan goes even further, though, addressing acute needs in rural and urban communities that suffer from a lack of high-speed internet, contend with lead hazards, and that lack affordable housing.

President Trump’s plan would provide little actual funding for infrastructure and would rely on private companies and private equity stepping in via public-private partnerships. This would likely come at an increased cost to the people and businesses who navigate our nation’s slowly crumbling infrastructure on a daily basis. The Senate Democrat’s proposal would improve lives, ease costs for businesses, and create jobs, all while reducing economic inequities across the country.

US Cancer Treatment Guidelines ‘Often Based On Weak Evidence’

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Cancer treatment guidelines produced by the US National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) are often based on low quality evidence or no evidence at all, finds a study published by The BMJ.

The researchers, led by Dr Vinay Prasad at Oregon Health & Science University, say their findings “raise concern that the NCCN justifies the coverage of costly, toxic cancer drugs based on weak evidence.”

NCCN guidelines are developed by a panel of cancer experts who make recommendations based on the best available evidence.

These recommendations are used by US private health insurers and social insurance schemes to make coverage decisions, and guide global cancer practice, but it is not clear how the evidence is gathered or reviewed.

In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves all new drugs and grants new indications for drugs already on the market. The NCCN makes recommendations both within and outside of FDA approvals, but patterns of NCCN recommendations beyond FDA approvals have not been analysed.

So Dr Prasad and his team compared FDA approvals of cancer drugs with NCCN recommendations in March 2016 for a contemporary sample of drugs. When the NCCN made recommendations beyond the FDA’s approvals, the evidence used to support those recommendations was evaluated.

A total of 47 new cancer drugs were approved by the FDA for 69 indications over the study period, whereas the NCCN recommended these drugs for 113 indications, of which 69 (62%) overlapped with the 69 FDA approved indications and 44 (39%) were additional recommendations.

Only 10 (23%) of these additional recommendations were based on evidence from randomised controlled trials, and seven (16%) were based on evidence from phase III studies. Most relied on small, uncontrolled studies or case reports, or no offered evidence.

And almost two years after their analysis, the researchers found that only six (14%) of the additional recommendations by the NCCN had received FDA approval.

“The NCCN frequently makes additional recommendations for the use of drugs beyond approvals of the FDA and when it does so, it often fails to cite evidence or relies on low levels of evidence,” write the authors.

“Few of these additional recommendations subsequently lead to drug approval,” they add. “If there is additional evidence in support of these recommendations the NCCN should improve its process and cite all evidence used.”

This is an observational study, so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, and the researchers point to some limitations. However, they say, given that NCCN endorsement is linked to reimbursement by many commercial insurers and social insurance schemes, “our results suggest that payers may be covering cancer drugs with varying and scientifically less robust justification.”

Finally, they point out that 86% of NCCN guidelines members have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry, with 84% receiving personal payments and 47% receiving research payments.

“The presence of conflicted physicians has been shown to lead to more optimistic conclusions regarding disputed practices,” they say. “Thus our findings raise concern about the nature of the recommendations offered by these individuals.”

South Africa’s Ramaphosas – Profile

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South Africa’s newly elected President Cyril Ramaphosa has an illustrious career which has seen him working in the private sector, the labour movement and he was among the writers of South Africa’s new democratic constitution.

Born on 17 November 1952 in Johannesburg, President Ramaphosa played an important role in the liberation struggle for a democratic South Africa.

The President was detained in 1974 for organising pro-Frelimo rallies that were held to celebrate the independence of Mozambique.

Two years later, after the Soweto student uprising he was detained again.

He became the first general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1982.

In 1991, he was elected African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General and subsequently became head of the ANC team that negotiated the transition to democracy.

Following the country’s first democratic elections in 1994, he was elected chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly, which wrote South Africa’s new democratic constitution.

He moved into the private sector in 1996, and in 2001 founded Shanduka Group, a diversified investment holding company.

He resigned from Shanduka in 2012 following his appointment as Deputy President of South Africa.

President Ramaphosa holds a law degree from the University of South Africa. He has received several honorary doctorates from local and international universities.

He received the Olof Palme prize in Stockholm in 1987. He was awarded the National Order of the Baobab in Silver in 2009 for his contribution to the multiparty negotiations and for chairing the Constitutional Assembly.

He was also the Deputy Chairperson of South Africa’s National Planning Commission.

President Ramaphosa was elected the fifth President of the democratic SA.

Meet SA’s new First Lady

He is married to Dr Tshepo Motsepe-Ramaphosa, who isn’t very well-known as she keeps a private life.

She was born in Soweto, a medical doctor by profession and holds a Master’s Degree in public health from Harvard.

Tshepo’s surname is familiar – that’s because she is the sister of business mogul and billionaire Patrice Motsepe and the daughter of the late Chief Augustine Butana Chaane Motsepe, both mining magnates and Mamelodi Sundowns owners.

This makes her a sister to Bridgette Radebe, who is married to Minister in the Presidency, Jeff Radebe.

The first lady also has a charitable side – having worked in several African countries and with several non-profit organisations. She is also the current chairperson of the African Self Help Trust (ASHA).

The ASHA website notes her bio as follows:

  • Worked in both private practice and in hospitals in South Africa and Zimbabwe
  • Non-executive director – Wits Health Consortium and Wits Hospice
  • Patron – South African Civil Society for Women’s, Adolescents and Children’s Health (SACSoWACH)
  • Patron – Students Sponsorship Program (SSP)
  • Served as Chairman of Gauteng Health Department’s Accreditation Committee
  • Former board member Vaal Reefs Disaster Trust
  • Former board member Kids Haven Foundation
  • Membership – National Medical and Dental Association

The trust says she is guided by the belief that “economic and social development is a pre-requisite for communities to lead socially and economically productive lives” as stated in the Alma Ata Declaration of 1978.


Food Assistance For Homeless Young Adults Is Inadequate

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Though young homeless adults make use of available food programs, these support structures still often fail to provide reliable and consistent access to nutritious food, according to the results of a new study by a University at Buffalo social work researcher.

The findings, which fill an important gap in the research literature, can help refine policies and programs to better serve people experiencing homelessness, particularly those between the ages of 18-24.

“It may be tempting to think of food pantries, soup kitchens and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as the solution,” said Elizabeth Bowen, an assistant professor in UB’s School of Social Work and lead author of the study with Andrew Irish, a UB graduate student in the School of Social Work, published in the journal Public Health Nutrition. But these supports are not enough. “We’re still seeing high levels of food insecurity, literal hunger, where people go a whole day without eating anything.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines food insecurity as “multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.” Hunger is a “potential consequence of food insecurity [that] results in discomfort, illness, weakness or pain.” In Bowen’s study, 80 percent of participants were considered to be severely food insecure.

“There has been recent research about housing and shelter use for homeless young adults, as well as work on drug use and sexual risk behaviors for this same population, but I found that not much had been done on the issue of food access,” said Bowen. “It’s hard to even think about housing and health needs if we don’t know how people are eating, or not eating.”

It’s not surprising see a relationship between homelessness and food insecurity, but Bowen warned of oversimplifying what is in fact a more nuanced problem.

“This research is important because we’re establishing a clear indication of food insecurity in this population, which we did not previously have,” she said. “If we’re going to design programs and services that better address food insecurity, along with addressing housing, education and employment, we need to know about the access strategies: How and what are homeless young adults eating? Where are they finding food? What do they have to do to get it? And how does that affect other parts of their lives?”

For her qualitative study, Bowen conducted in-depth interviews with 30 young adults between the ages of 18-24 who were experiencing homelessness in Buffalo, New York.

“Working with this small group gives us insights into the lived experience,” said Bowen. “It’s a way of setting a knowledge foundation and understanding of the topic in the context of people’s lives, and what goes on with their health, housing, relationships, education and trying to get out of homelessness.”

In Bowen’s study, 70 percent of young adults were receiving SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps. But actually getting these benefits can be difficult.

SNAP covers dependent children under their parent’s benefits until the child’s 22nd birthday. But the program administers benefits based on the parents’ address and assumes that parents and children of a single family are living together.

“This is clearly a problem for young people experiencing homelessness since many of them are under 22 and obviously aren’t living at the same address as their parents,” said Bowen. “The young people in this case can’t get SNAP on their own because they’re already listed on their parents’ open application for those same benefits – and the burden of proof is on the young person to demonstrate they don’t live with their parents.” Documentation is required as proof that the family is no longer together, according to Bowen, but in many cases getting the necessary paperwork is difficult because of strained family relationships.

“That’s one avenue for a policy change,” said Bowen.

But even with revised eligibility guidelines, food stamps sometimes are not enough, particularly for homeless young people who have no way to store or prepare food. Bowen noted that this problem would be greatly exacerbated by a change proposed in the 2019 federal budget to convert part of a household’s SNAP benefits from electronic benefits to a box of canned goods and other commodities.

Homeless young adults’ food access challenges are further compounded by the fact that young people are sometimes reluctant to use resources like soup kitchens, or have trouble accessing these places due to transportation barriers and limited hours. This finding mirrors prior research showing how young adults are not comfortable in places meant for the general homeless adult population, according to Bowen.

For instance, where shelter is concerned, an 18-year-old in the city of Buffalo is considered an adult and would go to an adult shelter, which can feel discouraging and unsafe.

“What I found in this study is that people were saying the same things about places to get food. They know about these soup kitchens, but the places feel institutional and stigmatized to young people,” said Bowen. “If we want to develop food programs to be engaging to young people we have to think about breaking down some barriers. For example, because of food insecurity among students, many college campuses are now offering food pantries. I would like to think about how to integrate food pantries and other services into places where young people are going anyway.”

Germany: Cabinet Approves Troop Increase For Afghanistan

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(RFE/RL) — The German government on March 7 approved plans to extend the country’s overseas military missions, including in Afghanistan.

The defense bill, which must still be approved by parliament, would raise the maximum number of German troops deployed in Afghanistan as part of NATO’s Resolute Support mission by one-third to 1,300.

The decision comes as the Western-backed government in Kabul is struggling to fend off the Taliban and other militant groups since the withdrawal of most NATO troops in 2014.

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen told broadcaster ARD that the move should be matched with accelerated reforms by the Afghan government.

She also warned that the military’s mission in Afghanistan would likely extend for some time, saying, “We need patience and a long breath, without question.”

Germany has contributed to NATO missions in Afghanistan for the past 17 years.

The German military has its headquarters in Afghanistan in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif and a large base near Kunduz.

Von der Leyen described the German military’s contribution to NATO’s missions in Afghanistan as a “story of progress on the one side, but of course also setbacks,” arguing that the educational opportunities for children, the status of women, health care, and infrastructure in the war-torn country had improved over the years.

But she also said that the Afghan Army was still struggling to keep the country safe.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government also agreed on April 7 to extend the German military’s missions in Iraq, Mali, South Sudan, and the NATO-led Sea Guardian operation in the Mediterranean Sea.

The cabinet meeting was the last before the new coalition government takes over.

Florida: Lawmakers Pass Gun Bill, Allows Arming ‘Some’ School Staff

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By a narrow margin, Florida legislators have passed controversial gun safety legislation limiting sales of certain firearms and providing for the arming of some school staff, in the wake of the recent massacre in Parkland.

Senate Bill 7076 passed by a 67-50 vote on Wednesday evening, after over eight hours of debate, and will become law in 15 days unless Governor Rick Scott vetoes it.

The new bill imposes a three-day waiting period for all firearm purchases and raises the minimum age for anyone buying a shotgun or rifle from 18 to 21. It also bans the sale of bump stocks, which are used to convert a semi-automatic gun into an automatic one.

The legislation also establishes the Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program, named after the school coach who was shot and killed during the massacre, which allows local sheriffs to “appoint certain volunteer school employees as school guardians” who would be required to undergo 132 hours of firearm and safety training. The bill also enforces mandatory mental health and drug screenings in order to qualify.

The program also mandates that any staff who “exclusively perform classroom duties as classroom teachers” are not allowed to take part in the program unless they are Junior Reserve Officers, service members or current or former law enforcement officers.

Further provisions in the bill prohibit anyone deemed mentally incompetent, or previously committed to a mental institution, from owning guns and advocates temporary seizures of guns from people taken into custody by authorities for involuntary mental examinations, citing the Baker Act, Reuters reports.

The bill also allocates $400mn to finance the directives.

Florida Democrats were heavily divided over the bill, arguing that certain provisions allowed armed staff to patrol school grounds and posing a risk to students, the Miami Herald reports. Some black lawmakers advised that it could unfairly target African-American students and personnel, inadvertently identifying them as shooters.

Though the killing of 17 people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the affluent neighborhood of Parkland was by no means the only such tragedy in the US in recent years, the event appears to have been a catalyst for acrimonious debate at a national level, pitting gun law reform advocates against gun freedom supporters.

There were walkouts at some schools and students themselves, in particular the survivors of the Parkland shooting, became more involved in the debate. This was seen, at least in part, to have prompted President Trump to invite students and parents to the White House.

It was at this meeting that Trump first publicly floated the idea that school personnel that were ‘adept’ with guns might be mandated to carry weapons on school premises. From there, the idea was met with a mix of scorn and praise and it is likely that the issue will be vigorously debated for some time to come.

Sierra Leone: Unrest After Polls Close

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By Jason Patinkin

Sierra Leone’s main opposition leader called for calm Wednesday night after his supporters engaged in running street battles with police, resulting in at least one injury at the end of an otherwise peaceful day of polling in the West African nation.

“I want every Sierra Leonean to behave themselves in a very peaceful manner so that we can have a peaceful election once in our lifetime,” Julius Maada Bio told reporters at Sierra Leone People’s Party headquarters in Freetown’s posh Goderich neighborhood, where he was holed up at dusk after his supporters clashed with police on the street.

“We hope this does not mar the whole election, which has been relatively smooth,” said Bio, a retired general who briefly seized power in a 1996 coup before handing power to civilian authorities.

Sierra Leone held general elections Wednesday in what analysts said was one of the most hotly contested races in the country’s history. Bio was running for president against Samura Kamara of the ruling All People’s Congress and 14 other candidates. The current president, Ernest Bai Koromo of the APC, must step down after serving two terms.

The vote went mostly smoothly across the country, but after polls closed, tensions rose in Goderich following an alleged incident outside the SLPP headquarters, where party officials said they were conducting a vote tally.

Bio accused police of trying to enter the compound without a warrant and putting him under “siege.” He said police accused him of “hacking” and threatened to use tear gas and force to enter. Bio rejected the hacking allegation.

SLPP supporters then amassed in the streets, facing off against police carrying shields who had deployed. Police used pepper spray and electric shocks to disperse the growing crowd, and SLPP supporters then began throwing rocks and glass bottles at police. Police responded by throwing rocks back, prompting running battles.

At least one SLPP supporter was injured.

Claude Robert, with a gash on his forehead, said police hit him as he tried to block them from entering the SLPP compound.

A few armed soldiers were also on the scene but did not participate in the melee.

VOA was unable to reach police for comment, but officers withdrew from outside SLPP headquarters after the skirmishes.

As the clashes died down, Bio met with police and election observers, including former Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan, head of the African Union observer mission to Sierra Leone.

Sierra Leone has enjoyed relative peace since its bloody civil war ended 15 years ago, but the country has been hit by crises recently, including the devastating 2014 Ebola outbreak and a deadly mudslide last year.

The APC has been accused of responding poorly to those disasters and of corruption. The party’s supporters point to newly built roads and electricity connections during Koromo’s decade in power.

Kazakhstan Grants US Access To Ports For Afghan-Bound Goods

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Lawmakers in Kazakhstan have approved an agreement allowing the United States to use two of the nation’s Caspian Sea ports as transit points for shipping nonmilitary material to Afghanistan.

By gaining access to the ports of Aktau and Kuryk, the United States will gain an additional option in circumventing Russia, which has previously also provided transit options for NATO supplies to Afghanistan.

Speaking on March 7, Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister Kairat Adrakhmanov repeatedly stressed the nonmilitary nature of the goods to be delivered through the route, which will run from Azerbaijan, across the Caspian Sea, to eastern Kazakhstan before entering Uzbekistan, which has railway links with northern Afghanistan.

Adrakhmanov said that a transit deal has been in place between Kazakhstan and the United States since 2010. More than 700 containers of goods have been delivered over that period, generating 200 million tenge ($625,000) in revenue for local transportation companies, Adrakhmanov said.

Kazakhstan’s support comes at a timely moment.

The United States is engaged in a two-fronted action against two crucial partners in the Afghanistan transit issue. President Donald Trump’s administration has just announced it intends to pursue further sanctions against Russia in a reprisal against alleged interference in the 2016 elections. U.S. citizens are already prohibited from dealings with Russian state-run companies like Russian Railways, and these latest advertised moves are only likely to further restrict potential options in transportation cooperation.

Pakistan has usually presented the simplest transit option whenever feasible, but problems have regularly cropped up there too. Islamabad suspended overland U.S. military supplies transit for eight months in 2011-12 after U.S. troops killed dozens of Pakistan soldiers on the Afghan border.

U.S. ties with Pakistan have endured yet another setback since January after Washington announced it was suspending what the New York Times has calculated might be around $1.3 billion worth of annual military aid. Inevitably, the snub was accompanied by a tweeted barb from Trump, who accused Pakistan of giving the United States “nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools.”

Such is the level of irritation in Islamabad that Trump may even be pushing Pakistan into Russia’s arms, creating an alliance that could severely hamper any Afghanistan strategy.

This rapidly devolving situation provides useful context for understanding why Trump seemed so eager to roll out the red carpet for President Nursultan Nazarbayev in January. During their meeting at the White House, Trump praised Kazakhstan fulsomely for its “continuous logistical support and access to Afghanistan.”

Does this all make Kazakhstan a spoiler of Russia’s efforts to complicate Washington’s life in Afghanistan? Yes and no. Astana has since the 1990s negotiated a careful diplomatic balancing act between West and East, a fact that Russia obviously factors in its decision-making. That said, Kazakhstan has evinced growing signs of uneasiness over its obligatory strategic symbiosis with Russia and taken tentative measures to address this

Georgia, Serbia Sign Visa-Free Agreement

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(Civil.Ge) — Georgian Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze and his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic signed an agreement on visa free travel between the two countries, the Serbian Foreign Ministry reported on March 7.

According to the Serbian MFA, the two ministers spoke on how to intensify bilateral political relations, and reiterated their mutual support for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“We want to thank Georgia for its principled position when it comes to Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence,” Dacic told Janelidze.

The Serbian Minster also announced President Giorgi Margvelashvili’s and Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili’s visits to Serbia this year, as well his return visit to Georgia.

In Belgrade, Foreign Minister Janelidze was also received by President Aleksandar Vucic, and Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, with the sides stressing on both occasions that more work was needed for boosting economic cooperation between the two nations.

FM Janelidze, who is to conclude his two-day visit today, held a meeting with European Integration Minister Jadranka Joksimovic as well.

Over 31,000 Scientists Sign Petition Against Global Warming Agenda – OpEd

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Over 31,000 scientists have united against the political agenda of global warming. The scientific consensus, which includes over 9,000 scientists with Ph.D.s, supports the necessity of carbon dioxide and sheds light on the agenda of global warming, which includes industrial energy rationing, central economic planning, and global taxation schemes. These scientists are now speaking out against the hoax of global warming and how global agreements to limit greenhouse gases are actually destructive to all plant and animal life on the planet.

The petition, which includes important peer-reviewed research, is backed by various scientists with a wide spectrum of expertise. The petition warns the United States about signing international treaties that only put a financial burden on the citizens of the country, steal national sovereignty, and restrict its energy production. The global warming alarmism, in other words, is pseudo-warfare designed to take down a country.

A letter from Frederick Seitz, President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, is also being circulated with the petition. The letter warns about the flawed science against carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is essentially a miracle molecule of life, not a dangerous pollutant that needs to be eradicated from the atmosphere. His letter also shines a light on the dangers of the U.S. entering global treaties which will ration energy and confiscate the Nation’s wealth.

Just because climate alarmist Al Gore can walk a stage, point to a graph, and correlate rising temperatures over oceans with a rise in greenhouse gases, does not make global warming a real issue or some kind of “settled science” that is going to destroy the planet. As the scientists point out, the vapor pressure of CO2 over sea water is temperature dependent. It’s natural for the two data sets to go up together. It’s not something to be alarmed about.

The petition urges elected leaders to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997 and all other proposals similar in nature. Thankfully, President Trump broke the U.S. free from the Paris Climate Accord. Removing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide would actually hurt the planet, taking away the compound that plants need to thrive. If carbon dioxide is so bad for the planet, why do greenhouse growers buy CO2 generators to double plant growth?

The petition and its accompanying research dispel the myth that projected carbon dioxide levels are going to cause a catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and the disruption of climate. The evidence is actually in favor of greenhouse gases, which are beneficial to plant and animal environments on Earth. The petition also takes aim at the global warming agenda, and says that it will hinder the advancement of science and technology around the world. The confiscation of U.S. energy output is a threat to U.S. sovereignty and the nation’s ability to offer aid to other countries. What if climate change alarmists just took a deep breath, exhaled some carbon dioxide, and actually focused on real pollutants that are plaguing our environment and health?


Bosnia: Government’s Woes Deepen As More MPs Defect

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By Mladen Lakic

Bosnia’s ruling coalition – which lost its majority in the state parliament last year – suffered more blows after two more MPs said they were quitting the coalition parties.

Bosnia’s embattled ruling coalition, comprising the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, the Alliance for Better Future of Bosnia, SBB, and the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, has lost the support of another two MPs in the state parliament.

Safer Demirovic, an MP in the House of Representatives, on Wednesday said he was leaving the SDA and would now sit as an independent in parliament, the Sarajevo news site Klix.ba reported. Borislav Bojic meanwhile said he was quitting the SDS.

Bojic said the SDS was no longer the party it used to be, adding that he did not inform his party about his decision to leave it.

The government already lost its majority in April of last year, when four SDA MPs in the House of Representatives, Salko Sokolovic, Sadik Ahmetovic, Senad Sepic and Safer Demirovic, also quit the party.

The SDA now has only six of its original 10 MPs left in the House of Representatives. As a result of various defections, the opposition parties in the chamber now have 23 representatives, and the government only 18.

The SDA, the main Bosniak party in Bosnia and one of the strongest parties in the country for the past three decades, is facing a crisis after several of its key people recently left or were removed from the party.

It remains questionable how the government can continue to operate, as it now clearly lacks enough MPs to secure the adoption of bills that the government, the Council of Ministers, has submitted.

Since leaving the SDA, Sadik Ahmetovic, Salko Sokolovic and Senad Sepic have formed the “Independent Bloc Club”.

Making the situation even more complicated, the SBB, although part of the parliamentary majority, is behaving increasingly as if it were in opposition.

Just How Unequal Are America’s Major Corporations? – OpEd

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By Bob Lord*

That America’s income distribution has grown dramatically more unequal in the past 40 years is beyond debate. The share of the top 1 percent has doubled since 1980, to over 20 percent of all income.

Could it get any worse? A look at America’s large, privately held corporations suggests it could.

When Americans think of large corporations, most of us think of corporations like Pepsi or ExxonMobil, whose shares are publicly traded.

We can know a fair amount about these companies from the reports they file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Thanks to an Obama-era rule that recently went into effect, we even know how much their CEO makes compared to typical workers.

Many large corporations, however, are privately owned. Typically a single shareholder, members of the same family, or perhaps a small group of investors owns all the stock of one of those corporations.

These private owners aren’t required to release much financial information, and few do so voluntarily. So their finances are much more opaque.

According to Forbes, there are over 200 privately held corporations in America with over $2 billion in annual revenue. The largest, Cargill, had $109 billion in revenue in 2016.

Unlike at publicly traded corporations, we don’t know just how unequal things are between the employees of those privately held corporations and their owners. Might those owners be stingier with workers?

I began to wonder about this when I saw an announcement by Ronald Cameron, the owner and CEO of the poultry processing Mountaire Corporation, of bonuses he’d decided to give his hourly employees. Those bonuses, he said, were made possible by the tax legislation recently passed by the Republican Congress.

Mountaire, according to Forbes, has 6,000 employees and just over $2 billion in annual revenue. If every employee qualified for the maximum bonus of $1,000 Cameron announced, Mountaire’s employees would receive $6 million in bonuses total.

Cameron, I’d noticed, is also a major Republican donor. He contributed over $14 million to Republican candidates for the 2016 election, including $2.4 million to Trump.

In other words, he was substantially more generous with politicians than with the 6,000 employees whose hard work has made him a very rich man.

What then, I wondered, might the income distribution be for the population at Mountaire — that is, the 6,000 employees and Cameron? What percentage of Mountaire’s profit does Cameron pay to his 6,000 employees, and how much does he keep for himself?

Mountaire doesn’t release that information. But we can make an educated guess based on what we know about similarly sized, publicly traded poultry processing companies.

Based on profit margins from those companies, along with data from a recent salary survey of Mountaire employees, Mountaire likely is paying $180 million or less in wages to its 6,000 employees each year — leaving about $200 million in pre-tax profits for CEO and owner Cameron.

In other words, over half the income at Mountaire may go to one person. That’s 600 times as concentrated as in the country overall.

Mountaire could be an outlier. But consider this: CEOs at publicly traded corporations resisted reporting their ratio of CEO compensation to median worker pay for seven years. Honeywell recently became the first corporation to report its CEO to worker pay ratio, an eye-popping 333 to 1.

That’s how bad it is at the companies we know about. How bad might it be at the companies we don’t?

*Bob Lord is a Phoenix-based tax attorney and an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Distributed by OtherWords.org.

Putin’s Militaristic Threats Aren’t Even Close To Real Possibilities He Claims – OpEd

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Vladimir Putin’s militaristic speech to the Federal Assembly presented as innovations developments either that happened long ago or that others have found unsound and as genuine possibilities for a country that lacks the scientific and industrial base needed to carry them out, according to Mark Solonin.

Solonin, a historian whose criticism of Putin’s aggression against Ukraine led him to seek asylum in Estonia where he now lives and works, provides one of the most detailed critiques step by step of what Putin said and why besides his bombast there is little new to fear (solonin.org/article_seans-ohotnichey-magii).

Putin devoted most of the military section of his speech to wonder weapons without any acknowledgement of the fundamental reality of such systems in today’s world. “The times when an outburst of creative gifts could lead to those have long passed. In the 21st century, any new step toward improvement is based on experience and difficult trials.”

And if one goes beyond this metaphor, Solonin says, such innovations require “the existence of scientific-construction collectives with enormous experience measured in decades and material support of this experience in the form of testing ranges, measured complexes and computer programs.”

“In the Soviet Union of the 1950s through the 1980s, this existed,” he continues. “But then it all fell apart. The chief bearers of priceless experience – people – were lost. The enterprises of the military-industrial complex are led by effective managers from among former chekists and the defense ministry by a former furniture manufacturer.”

And while all this has been happening – or more precisely while no development has been occurring in Russia – “the Americans have not been sitting on their hands for 10, 15 or 20 years just waiting for us to catch up.” They have been moving forward, and Russia will have to catch up with them before it can surpass them.

From all this flows an irrefutable conclusion: “not miracles, no ‘fireballs,’ no arms systems ‘without analogues in the world’ will not exist in Russia in 2018 because they will never exist. ‘Our boys’ can’t and won’t be able to think up anything more than the Americans already have.”

“In the best case,” the Russian historian says, “with the enormous financing of the last decade, the old Soviet projects will be revived and the lag behind the world’s scientific-technical leader will be reduced.” But anyone who promises more is lying; and anyone who believes him is only deceiving himself.

Solonin then examines each of Putin’s “magic” weapons in detail. (Military experts will want to consult his long article.) He points out that the Sarmat missile is not part of Russia’s arsenal. Moreover, “its fight tests not only have not been completed but as a matter of fact have not been begun.”

The supposed capacity to attack the US over the south pole as well as the north has existed since 1961, but no one would think to do the former because it would give the opponent ever more time to figure out ways to shoot it down. The Americans “aren’t fools.” If they launch, they will launch over the north pole not the south.

Putin’s notion of a nuclear-powered cruise missile of virtually unlimited range is even more absurd. There were discussions of this in the late 1950s, but serious scientists as opposed to opportunistic Russian presidents rejected it because the missile would be too big, it would be too easy to spot, and it would probably destroy itself once it re-entered the atmosphere.

Putin talked a lot about “hypersonic” weapon systems, forgetting to tell his audience that missiles have been hypersonic since the Germans launched one in 1942. The real problem is making them in such a way that they can change course when back in the atmosphere and avoid burning up if they have the features that might allow that.

Scientists in the West have been working on these questions for many years, as once did Soviet scientists. But Russian scientists today aren’t, despite Putin’s claims to the contrary. And as a result, there are now far more questions left open than answers or at least positive actionable ones available.

The same thing is true of a space plane as the Americans have discovered through tests, but that Putin, whose subordinates haven’t tested one, clearly has not. The best Russia and the world can hope for is that after the Russian election, this speech with its absurd claims will be forgotten, except for those concerned about the judgment of the man who made it.

Battling Sexism: There Is No Women’s Day – OpEd

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By Aditi Aryal*

Women’s day is celebrated all over the world on the 8th of March with great fervor. Despite the fact that women have come a long way since the firstly held women’s day in 1909, we are still fighting for progress and equality with the theme for 2018 being #PressForProgress. Being a woman definitely goes beyond the mere biology of possessing a body that could be dissected and thus categorised into belonging to that of a woman’s. It also goes beyond the expected gender norms and roles given to women by the society.

The year 2018 brings 109th women’s day and it should be a good place to discuss what it means to be a woman in today’s time, and the difficulties that come along with being one, with a major focus on the eastern part of the globe.

In Family And Society

Women have been suffering discrimination and injustice in the hands of men and other women. In families in the developing world, girls and boys are treated differently. Girls are taught to take care of their appearance, language, habits, elegance, and manners because as grown up women these attributes make great difference on the way people perceive and judge us. Growing up, girls are brought up more strictly than boys and made to participate in the household chores more. Upon marriage, brides and their families pay up ginormous amounts in cash and kind to the grooms and family. Menstruating women are still considered unchaste and impure and thus banished to animal sheds where they die of cold, animal attacks, infestation of insects and reptiles, and sex crimes. Honour killing is on the rise, even for trivial matters like talking to an unrelated male. Discouraged from looking beautiful, wearing bright colours and make up, and eating what they desire, or remarriage, widows live a terrible life of solitude and unhappiness.

Portrayed as perfect caretakers, home-makers, and nurturers, women have never been able to rise from the basic household duties, which in most cases is unpaid work. Not only are women left behind in the labour force with little participation, they very rarely hold higher positions. Housework is considered petty work and women who work outside the houses are valued more. It has also been concluded through various research in Brazil, Bangladesh, and Zimbabwe that women who worked outside their houses faced lesser domestic violence, were more actively participating in politics, and had a bigger say in family matters. However, most women cannot in families make decisions also on subjects that concern them and this further impacts the overall participation and representation in the society. When some women do try to break from the bounds and speak up on things they are dissatisfied with, they rarely get support from other women because everyone is not mobilised in the society to speak up for themselves.

In eastern societies where worshipping of goddesses and demigoddesses is fairly rampant, being a woman means having to live as a victim of unwarranted assaults, and sexism. Sometimes, being a woman means having been killed in the womb or immediately after birth because the family and society wanted a male child. Often, being a woman means constantly having to look behind our shoulders for a potential rapist even in the safest of areas out of fear that has been institutionalised since we were children.

In Media

The value of being a woman is reduced to that of exactly what should not be, especially in the media. Commercial advertisements still show women as weak where they cannot fix their own things. They also show women as efficient workers in the house: doing the dishes, laundry, taking care of children who are hungry, sick, sleeping, tired, dirty, and such. Lab coats are put on women only when they need to tell us that ‘9/10 experts recommend the product’. Dark women are ugly and unsuccessful and fairness treatments are advertised without any hesitation. Advertisements for menstrual products do not actually try to inform people about the importance but rather focus on women on periods doing things they would not even do otherwise.

In print media and otherwise, women are always portrayed rather uncomfortably. Sexism has been reported to exist in forms that denigrate women, usually by the terminology and pictorial representation. Women’s sports team are called the ‘Women Sports Team’ and men’s teams are simply called the ‘Country’s Sport Team’. In some segments in the Nepalese newspapers, some female models and actors are asked questions like their favourite sexual encounters and positions, and their thoughts on masturbation. While these things are not wrong, per se, but there is a growing trend of using revelations of these women against them. One very famous female actor was once attacked on social media in 2017 for saying something along the terms of her preferences. Once women start talking about enjoying sex as an activity they are judged in the society because it alters from their opinion of a ‘good woman’. A good woman does not talk about her sex life in public.

Marketing gimmicks involve victimising women in the form of scandals, nudity, and stereotypes.

Lastly

We celebrate women’s day every year to celebrate the difference women have been making to humankind. However, one day in the year allocated to profit making ventures like unnecessary programmes and rallies does very little. After the festivities are over, everybody goes back home dealing with the sexism of everyday lives.

In fact, there is no such thing as a women’s day if in reality we ensure women hold on to the same footing as men, are given equal salaries, freedom, treatment, opportunities, education, inheritance, importance, and chance to live. If women and men were equally placed in the society, we would never need for a separate day to remind each other to send out women-centric quotes on Whatsapp and Facebook. Rather, if we noticed and placed importance on subtle things and tried to avoid committing actions that brought out disparities among genders, every day would truly be women’s day. However, this 2018, let us truly #PressForProgress by smashing the patriarchy. For now, a happy women’s day.

About the author:
*Aditi Aryal
is a student of Social Science and writes about social and developmental issues pertaining to exclusion, inequalities, and gender disparities in the South Asian context.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

Putin’s Coming Presidency: Tougher For Russo-Western Relations? – Analysis

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President Putin’s annual address to the Federal Assembly on 1 March 2018 places the onus on the West to improve the current tense relationship. What is the Russian leader trying to achieve?

By Chris Cheang*

President Vladimir Putin’s State of the Nation address to the Federal Assembly (FA), Russia’s national legislature, not only laid out details of the socio-economic challenges facing the country. In a not-so-subtle message, it significantly also unveiled a new generation of weapons and technology which could neutralise the global missile defence system of the United States.

It was to be expected that more attention was given to Russia’s socio-economic challenges in a speech that was dominated by domestic issues, coming just days before the presidential election on 18 March 2018. But when he did touch on foreign policy, Putin’s message was unsurprisingly tough.

Putin’s Strong-man Posture

Putin wanted to stress that while Russia is interested in “normal and constructive cooperation with the US and EU”, it would not allow itself to be dictated to. Western pressure in the form of economic sanctions; the build-up of NATO forces and infrastructure close to Russia’s borders; and the US’ global missile defence shield; etc would not alter Russian policy.

The blame for the current state of Russo-Western relations was placed on the West, specifically the US for its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, which he described “as the cornerstone of the international security system”.

Putin also cited NATO expansion to the east and the establishment of missile defence systems in Romania and Poland as reasons for developing and eventually deploying its new generation of weapons and technology.

He pointedly criticised the West for taking advantage of post-Soviet Russia’s weakness. He stressed the fact that after the collapse of the USSR, Russia “lost 23.8 percent of its national territory, 48.5 percent of its population, 41 of the GDP, 39.4 percent of its industrial potential (nearly half of our potential, I would underscore), as well as 44.6 percent of its military capability due to the division of the Soviet Armed Forces among the former Soviet republics”.

In addition, he said: “The military equipment of the Russian army was becoming obsolete, and the Armed Forces were in a sorry state. A civil war was raging in the Caucasus, and US inspectors oversaw the operation of our leading uranium enrichment plants.”

Still Open to Better Relations

Putin noted it had been assumed that Russia would not “even be able to safely store and maintain the nuclear weapons that we inherited after the collapse of the USSR. Russia had outstanding debts, its economy could not function without loans from the IMF and the World Bank; the social sphere was impossible to sustain.”

The West, he argued “got the impression that it was impossible in the foreseeable historical perspective for our country to revive its economy, industry, defence industry and Armed Forces to levels supporting the necessary strategic potential. And if that is the case, there is no point in reckoning with Russia’s opinion, it is necessary to further pursue ultimate unilateral military advantage in order to dictate the terms in every sphere in the future”.

Putin however made it clear that he was not closing the door to future negotiations on improving the relationship with the West, noting that “we hope common sense will prevail and our partners will opt for honest and equal work together”.

Putin’s Strategic Goals

His speech served both domestic and foreign policy purposes.

First, it outlined his vision for the next presidential term of office and was obviously meant for the electorate. While conventional wisdom states that Putin would emerge the victor, he himself is known to be a thorough individual and never takes matters for granted. In fact, his speech focused more on domestic social and economic issues than foreign policy challenges.

Second, with respect to foreign policy, his messages in the speech were directed primarily to the US and subtly to China. The message was simply this: Russian military strength cannot be dismissed as irrelevant; hence, Russian interests must be taken into account on issues like nuclear parity and NATO expansion.

Third, his messages were meant for the Russian people who have never really reconciled themselves to seeing their country as anything less than a global superpower.

Finally, his speech also had a larger audience – the global community. It was meant to show the world that despite Western sanctions, Russia has not and will not collapse. The last two decades or so of Putin’s rule have seen him successfully rebuild Russia’s strength to restore the country’s place in the sun.

Implications for ASEAN

The continuing tension and apparent stalemate in Russo-Western relations do not serve the overall interests of Southeast Asia which enjoys good ties with both sides. If tense Russo-Western relations were to spill over into the economic realm of their relationship with Southeast Asia, then obviously the latter will suffer as well.

Moreover, the possibility exists that the more difficult the relationship becomes for both sides, the more they might be inclined or feel forced to bring their disputes into this part of the world; they might try to seek advantages over each other, either bilaterally with Southeast Asian countries or with ASEAN as a whole. That would complicate the already apparent competition between the US and China in the region.

Unfortunately, as things stand now, Southeast Asia’s good ties with both sides do not allow it to play an honest broker’s role. It is not a reflection of Southeast Asia’s irrelevance to the larger currents of international developments but more a manifestation of the reality that the great powers’ differences sometimes do not lend themselves to outside mediation.

*Chris Cheang is a Senior Fellow with the S.Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. A retired diplomat, he served three tours in the Singapore Embassy in Moscow between 1994 and 2013.

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