UNITED NATIONS, Aug 02 (IPS) – In a groundbreaking turn of events, women in Bugiri District, Eastern Uganda, have defied societal norms and broken into the traditionally male-dominated fish farming industry.
Through the Women Economic Empowerment Programme launched by UN Women, these women have not only mastered the art of fishing but also revolutionized their economic prospects.
Rose Nakimuli, a resident of Bugiri, vividly recalls her journey into fish farming. “When I was selected to be trained in fish farming, I embraced the opportunity. I approached it as a job,” Ms. Nakimuli says with determination.
With the support of the UN Women project, she learned the ins and outs of aquaculture, swimming, and fishing, becoming a skilled fish farmer. Today, she proudly feeds her family and earns a descent livelihood from her newfound expertise.
Ms. Nakimuli is one of 1,400 women trained in fish farming. The Programme, initiated in 2019, has set ambitious goals to enhance women’s income security, promote decent work, and empower them with economic autonomy by 2025. The success achieved in the fish farming industry in Bugiri District stands as a shining example of the program’s impact.
With funding from the Government of Sweden and Standard Bank, UN Women partnered with the Bugiri District Local Government to support rural women in engaging in fish farming activities on the waters of Lake Victoria.
As a result, 28 cages brimming with Tilapia fish now stand as a testament to the women’s unwavering dedication and determination.
Amina Nakiranda, the project’s production manager, explains that it went beyond teaching women how to fish as the programme also equipped them with essential business management skills.
“Before this programme, many of us struggled with small businesses selling fresh produce or silver fish in local marketplaces,” Ms. Nakiranda reveals.
“However, through the comprehensive training provided by the project, we learned how to run our businesses efficiently, from start to finish.”
The cage fish project goes has strengthened the women’s capacity in governance, financial literacy, and the entire fish value chain. Inspired by their achievements, the women established a private company called “Women Economic Empowerment Bugiri (WEEB).”
Immaculate Were, the CEO of WEEB, proudly highlights the transformational journey of these women. “Although 85% of the beneficiaries are illiterate, they have become specialists in various aspects of fish farming, including feeding, harvesting, preservation, marketing, and trading,” Ms. Were remarks, adding that “Once a woman gets wealthy, that’s wealth for the whole nation.”
The project has also made significant strides in improving gender relations at the household level. With women contributing to the family budget and gaining financial independence, gender-based violence has notably reduced.
Judith, a member of the executive board of WEEB, shares her experience: “The project has reduced gender-based violence because we no longer sit home and beg our husbands for everything. We are no longer burdens; the project has empowered us.”
Beyond individual success stories, the fish farming project has made substantial contributions to the national GDP. With an impressive production of 508.5 tons of fish, the women have generated sales worth UGX 4.3 billion (approximately $1.15 million).
The project’s impact extends further, with UN Women providing essential support, including accommodations for working women, daycare services for their children, and necessary resources such as shelters, fish nets, life jackets, and a refrigerated truck for convenient market access.
“Thanks to UN Women, today we feel like heroes,” Ms. Nakimuli adds. ” Even the men view us as heroes, because fishing used to be a man’s job and we are excelling in it. It also gives us income to cater for our households.”
The journey of these resilient women serves as an inspiration, proving that with support and determination, barriers can be shattered, and new horizons can be explored.
Pearl Amina Karungi is Communications and Knowledge Management Officer, UN Women
Source: Africa Renewal: a United Nations digital magazine that covers Africa’s economic, social and political developments.
ABUJA, Aug 01 (IPS) – Not all wars are fought on the battleground. The Cold War has taught us that certain wars could go on for decades, without overt violence. Perhaps, we are in the middle of another one with China as the new rival to the United States of America. This time, the ‘battlefield’ is Africa.
Similarly, we all know of how the United States has heavily supported many countries in Africa through trade and in the fight against insurgency; putting boots on the ground, supplying top-grade artillery, training security agencies etc.
There is no point in rehashing the dysfunctional relationship Africa has had with… hmmm, what’s the right term? The global north? Developed nations? Let’s just say ‘richer nations’.
Also, there is no need to debate how that wealth came to be. The point is that Africa has, for the longest time, depended on wealthier nations for humanitarian aid and oftentimes, this aid always comes with strings attached.
Recently, I was at an event organized by Devex where Congresswoman Sara Jacobs spoke on US-Africa relations. She made very valid points about how the United States has, over the years, used a carrot-stick approach with the continent, dangling humanitarian aid for alignment with the United States policies and ideologies and sanctions for derelictions (my words, not hers).
She highlighted the positive impact of some of these policies like the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which I had not heard of prior to her mentioning it but has yielded interesting returns for Nigeria and the U.S. She went on to caution against the U.S limiting diplomatic relations with Africa to a strategic competition to simply be one-up over China.
Then she said something that got me thinking really hard. She talked about the United States giving Africa agency. In fairness to her, I do not remember the full statement she made and her points of view were largely refreshing to hear but my mind went off on a tangent, pondering a question, “Will the USA ever really accept Africa’s agency, even when we do not agree with them?”
The truth is that Africa does not need any country or ‘superpower’ to give it agency. Absolutely not! Africa is made up of sovereign nations who already have agency and while these nations may not act like it as they go cap-in-hand seeking foreign aid, this is a fact.
Why would nations so far removed make decisions for a whole continent? Why does Africa have to be a pawn in a scheme that it has no business with? Why is there even a conversation about strengthening relations with Africa on the basis of having an advantage over another nation?
The goal of this article is not to point accusatory fingers at the United States or China. After all, some of these humanitarian efforts have truly improved certain communities, albeit at a great cost. More so, as our people say, when you point one finger, the others point back at you. What have our leaders done to reposition the continent? How has the continent looked inward to build itself?
The questions abound but I believe this is the start. There are so many development organizations in Africa, but how many of them are thinking of systemic change rather than merely providing direct service?
Do not misunderstand me: direct service is important in bridging immediate gaps to improve the quality of life in various communities. Nonetheless, if we are going to initiate long-term change then we should be thinking of systems change, policy advocacy, looking at the big picture and laying the building blocks for posterity.
Irrespective of the sectors you may be working in- governance, health, education, environment etc.- as you provide services for the ‘now’, you must also have a bird’s eye view of how to improve your community for the long run and eliminate the factors that perpetuate the status quo.
With the expertise you have in your local context, you should be the one directing even international grantmakers on how best to engage communities. This is the concept of localization, that I wrote about here. This is why collaboration and coalition-building in the development space is important. Development work is not a competition even though grantmaking has made it seem that way.
Ultimately, Africa needs to stand up for itself. There is no one coming to save us. Otherwise, we will sit by, twiddle our thumbs and find ourselves back in 1884.
Angela Umoru-David is a creative social impact advocate whose experience cuts across journalism, program design and corporate/development communications, and aims to capture a plurality of views that positively influence the African narrative
LONDON, Aug 01 (IPS) – When this Indian Ocean- island gained independence from Britain in 1948 after some 450 years of colonial rule under three western powers, it was simply named the “Dominion of Ceylon”.
This country which was granted universal franchise nearly two decades before independence was seen as one of Asia’s first democracies-if not the first.
Sadly, that reputation has fast faded.
Today, that right to vote is being denied with even elections to local bodies been halted for dubious reasons including the lack of state funds. The Supreme Court issued an interim order asking that funds be made available for the election. ruling.
That order was simply ignored. Instead, the ruling Sri Lanka People’s Front (SLPP) MPs threatened to summon the judges to parliament for allegedly violating their privileges
The most recent is a desperate move by one government MP to move a private member’s motion to have parliament vote to let the expired bodies continue in the absence of elections.
Fortunately, the Attorney-General informed the Speaker that such a move was unconstitutional and so would require a two-third majority vote and perhaps a referendum. That shut the door on this piece of frippery.
The government’s concern is understandable. It is led by a stand-in president of one party propped up in parliament by a majority from a one- time political enemy the SLPP, now living a symbiotic political existence.
Neither of them wants an election even at the lowest levels of governance for fear of what the results might signify. Negative results would sound alarm bells ahead of the presidential elections next year and parliamentary elections the year after, though the president could call parliamentary elections earlier.
Those who would look back at Sri Lankan political history since 1977 might well wonder whether current president Ranil Wickremesinghe, filling in until November next year for predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa who resigned after fleeing public wrath, has taken a page out of his uncle Junius Richard Jayewardene’s book of political Machiavellianism.
But if “Yankee Dicky”, as Jayewardene was called from his early days for his pro-American foreign policy views and his capitalist economic outlook, took a turn to the right when he came to power in 1977, his nephew has taken a sharper turn in that direction, his neoliberal views meshing with the IMF rescue programme intended to pull the country out of the economic mess that Gotabaya Rajapaksa created during his short presidency.
Yet Wickremesinghe’s path to economic resuscitation is strewn with political and working- class casualties against whom some of the most abrasive laws in the country’s statute books have been employed, such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
International conventions such as the ICCPR have been stood on its head to detain dissidents and clamped down on public protests and other rights guaranteed under the constitution that his uncle imposed on the country.
If the IMF agreement calls for the government to sell the family silver, as Wickremesinghe’s offer of even profit- making state- owned enterprises and other state assets to foreign and local investors suggest, this is bound to adversely affect employment adding to the amounting joblessness in recent years following the Covid pandemic and President Rajapaksa’s misguided economic policies.
Besides this, a new Labour law that would repeal some 28 existing laws granting workers’ rights won over the years through hard struggles by leftist trade unions and political parties, would be replaced by stringent new laws heavily weighted in favour of employers.
The proposed labour laws now been waved about by an over-enthusiastic Labour Minister hoping to please the president and the business community will, if not challenged before the Supreme Court, will jettison many long existing workers’ rights to create a comfortable environment for prospective foreign investors and the government’s business cronies.
A new anti-terrorism law, more abhorrent than the PTA, has drawn heavy flak both at home and internationally. An anti-corruption law has just been passed, more to satisfy the IMF than to catch the crooks, particularly politicians who fattened themselves over the years. Though Sri Lanka already has stringent laws not even a fistful of politicians have been prosecuted and convicted for bribery and corruption.
Meanwhile the country is facing a huge brain drain. Since 2022 some 700 or so doctors, specialists and medical staff have left for employment abroad. So have other professionals including engineers, IT specialists, airline pilots and technicians.
Education Minister Susil Premajayantha admitted in parliament the other day that 255 university academics and some 150-odd non- academic staff have vacated posts since last year.
Furthermore, UN reports have pinpointed the rise of poverty in the country with families and school children skipping meals because people cannot afford the high prices for domestic essentials like electricity.
The Agriculture Minister was warning the other day about the possibility of poor harvests in the coming season which, if sadly it does happen, could lead to food shortages
The seeming political stability with no queues and no demonstrators, should not be misconceived. While Wickremesinghe’s governing alliance in which fissures have been more conspicuous recently, prepares the ground to welcome foreign and local capitalist entrepreneurs, the same ground is being cut under the feet of the vast majority who survived all these years on their meagre earnings and now are struggling to survive.
In 1972, the then coalition government led by the world’s first woman prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike which came to power two years earlier, made the final constitutional break with Britain, dropping the British monarch as its head of state and declaring the country as the “Republic of Sri Lanka”. It maintained the Westminster-style parliamentary system it was accustomed to.
That government was roundly defeated at the 1977 general election. The right-wing United National Party (UNP) under its new leader Jayewardene, popularly called “JR”, won an unprecedented five-sixth majority in parliament driving Mrs Bandaranaike’s SLFP to a single digit presence.
Jayewardene decided the country needed a new constitution. But it was drafted without any public consultation whereas the 1972 constitution was drafted by parliament meeting separately as a constituent assembly.
Jayewardene named himself president and was sworn-in on 4th February 1978 under a new executive presidential system. The name of the country was changed into an ostentatious “Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka”.
Armed with enormous powers and a party with a five-sixth majority in parliament Jayewardene said the only thing he could not do was to change a man into a woman and vice versa.
The new name for Sri Lanka was a tragic misnomer. It did not take long for Jayewardene to show that he was neither democratic nor socialist. He set up a presidential commission which hauled up former prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, her closest minister Felix Dias Bandaranaike and others before it for alleged corruption and abuse of power. They were stripped of their civic rights, eliminated from political activity for seven years.
The president was more concerned about preserving his huge majority in parliament fearing that a general election would see a resurrected opposition returning in larger numbers.
In a move unheard of in democratic governance, President Jayewardene obtained signed letters of resignation from parliament from all his 140 MPs. The one thing missing was the date which the president would fill in if required. That was Jayewardene’s Damocles-ean Sword suspended over his own MPs.
The biggest blot on Jayewardene’s escutcheon is the bloody events of July 1983 when minority Tamils in Colombo and around the country were physically attacked and some 3000, according to reports were killed, their houses burnt and the businesses destroyed and looted. Thousands were made refugees in their own country or abroad.
The immediate cause for this horrendous and tragic happening 40 years ago was said to be the killing of 13 soldiers by Tamil insurgents in the north.
But when the attacks on Tamils and their homes really unfolded on July 25, as I witnessed that day and later, there were clear signs of government involvement. The fact that neither the president nor any minister appeared on TV calling a halt to this ethnic convulsion spoke volumes.
When the government did finally speak about four days later, it claimed the attacks were the “spontaneous outburst of Sinhala wrath” at the killing of the soldiers.
But with international community critical at the government’s inaction to stop the carnage, Jayewardene swiftly changed tack. The government claimed there was a “Naxalite” conspiracy to assassinate government figures and overthrow the government. A foreign hand-unnamed- was involved, it said.
Jayewardene evoked the Public Security Act to round up opposition politicians he feared were growing in popularity and throw them in jail and sealed the Communist Party newspaper. I remember my friend John Elliot of the “Financial Times” calling it “a crude cover up” while other foreign journalists simply dismissed the story.
What does matter now is that right through these events of the Jayewardene years, Sri Lanka’s current President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Jayewardene’s nephew, was a faithful member of his uncle’s cabinet and possibly privy to what went on inside.
In fact, if I remember correctly, he made a speech in parliament on the so-called “Naxalite” plot.
There is one essential difference. JR served two terms as president. His nephew lost two presidential elections and yearns to be at elected president at least once.
Next March he will be 75. Would he then be at the door step of the Last Chance Saloon? If so how far would he go to make sure he becomes and elected president like his uncle before retires from politics.
The United National Party (UNP) that his uncle represented and he does now, was called the Uncle Nephew Party from its early days. We shall see before long, won’t we.
Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who held senior roles in Hong Kong at The Standard and worked in London for Gemini News Service. He has been a correspondent for the foreign media.
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 31 (IPS) – This year, India surpassed China as the world’s most populous nation. China is expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2035, but its population will likely continue to decline, while India’s will continue to grow.
India is projected to surpass 1.5 billion people by the end of this decade, reaching 1.7 billion people by 2064. Goldman Sachs analysts recently predicted India will be the world’s second-largest economy by 2075.
India’s population growth is widely touted as an economic opportunity to be seized, a chance for India to press its advantage as the most populous nation on Earth, with the greatest proportion of working age people.
For example, there have been recent calls for India to take the helm as a world leader in steel production. Demand for steel is expected to surge as India’s population grows, and more steel production capacity could boost India’s economy.
But there is more to population growth than just bigger markets and workforces. The same population growth that drives up demand also puts immense pressure on environmental, education, and health infrastructure.
So, as India’s population grows, it’s imperative that we balance its economic development with the well-being of its people. Sabina Dewan, a senior visiting fellow at the Center for Policy Research, says population growth could be a “tremendous productive force for the economy” but economic growth “hinges on providing good quality, productive, and well-remunerated jobs.” As Wilson Center scholar Jennifer Sciubba put it, “We’ve got 1.4 billion people in India, and it’s up to India to decide whether or not that becomes a resource or a burden.”
How population growth ultimately impacts people depends on how government, civil society, and society as a whole address its challenges and capitalize on its benefits. One key aspect of this is upholding people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
As India’s population expands, the number of people of child-bearing age will continue to grow, and the stakes of SRHR will get higher. Studies show access to comprehensive SRHR services is key for health and well-being and helps women and girls reach their educational and economic goals. It also enables them to delay and space childbearing, moderating population growth and easing pressure on natural resources and infrastructure.
Currently, women and girls in India do not have sufficient access to SRHR services. Two million adolescent Indian women have an unmet need for modern contraception. A staggering 78% of abortions among adolescents are unsafe, leading to an elevated risk of complications.
And as India’s population grows, it also raises the stakes of gender discrimination and achieving gender equity. Without sufficient investment in the health and rights and women and girls, population growth is likely to exacerbate existing gender disparities.
But when women gain access to more education, economic opportunity, and family planning resources, it leads to greater economic participation and prosperity. Research finds such programs can help lift people out of poverty, improving their standard of living and contributing to a more inclusive economy.
In order to leverage the demographic dividend from population growth, in addition to manufacturing, transportation, energy, and digital infrastructure, India’s government should invest in its people.
It should focus on skill development and quality education programs that include women and girls, with emphasis on vocational training and technical education to equip the workforce with the skills the rapidly changing job market demands.
India’s rapid population growth is neither a blessing nor a curse, neither utopian opportunity nor dystopian destiny. Instead, it’s a blend of challenges and possibilities. The outcome for people depends on the actions we take and the investments we make.
Conventional investments like ramping up steel production may raise India’s GDP, but won’t by themselves make people happier or healthier, or lead to greater productivity and prosperity in the long run.
For that we’ll need a comprehensive approach, including policies and investments that prioritize SRHR, gender equity, education, and health. That’s the pathway towards beneficial economic growth, sustainable development, and a more balanced, prosperous future.
Taira Bhargava is a Stanback Reproductive Health Research fellow at the Population Institute in Washington, DC. Hailing from New Delhi, India, she is a rising junior at Duke University, studying Human Biology and Environmental Science.
LONDON, Jul 28 (IPS) – Nepal is the latest country to join the global wave of marriage equality. On 28 June, its Supreme Court ruled that the government must immediately offer temporary registration of same-sex marriages, pending a change in the law. Around 200 couples reportedly sought to register as soon as the court judgment was made.
Nepal will therefore become the second country in Asia, after Taiwan, to recognise the right of all couples to marry. It’s little surprise that, as in many countries that have achieved marriage equality, it’s civil society that’s making the change happen, having brought the decisive court case.
Civil society’s breakthrough
Each year brings further important steps forward on two crucial fronts: decriminalisation of same-sex relations in the many countries where they’re still criminalised and recognition of marriage equality in countries that have made more progress.
Only last month a landmark was achieved in Estonia, which became the first post-Soviet state to legalise same-sex marriage. Now Nepal should become the 36th country in the world where LGBTQI+ people can marry, and the ninth this decade.
In Nepal, these efforts built on an earlier legal breakthrough, when in 2007 the Supreme Court ruled that the government must take measures to guarantee equal rights and end discrimination against LGBTQI+ people. This too was the result of a legal petition filed by several LGBQTI+ rights organisations following the country’s transition from a monarchy to a democratic republic. LGBTQI+ people had been as active as anyone else in demanding democracy but LGBTQI+ rights weren’t immediately recognised in the new Nepal.
The 2007 ruling unlocked significant progress: laws that banned gay sex were repealed that year. In 2015, Nepal’s new constitution recognised the fundamental rights of LGBQTI+ people and forbade discrimination. The court also recognised a third gender – a longstanding identity in the cultures of Nepal and other South Asian countries – and the right to have it registered on official documents.
Nepali schools now offer comprehensive sexuality education to students aged 13 to 15, which includes discussion of LGBTQI+ issues. This came as a result of a campaign by the Blue Diamond Society, a civil society organisation that has led the fight for LGBTQI+ rights in Nepal since 2001.
As further rights were recognised, continuing marriage discrimination increasingly stood out. A bill to legalise it was drafted soon after the 2007 ruling, consistent with the court’s order to guarantee equal rights, but not much happened after that. It fell on civil society to hold the government to account.
There are still challenges ahead. As yet, the government hasn’t responded to the court ruling, which suggests it’s hardly in a hurry to legislate. That means people’s rights remain vulnerable to administrative resistance, leading to uneven enforcement. On 13 July, for instance, the Kathmandu District Court rejected an application from a male couple to register their marriage.
Anti-rights backlash
Litigation has become the key means by which civil society wins change on LGBTQI+ rights, as reflected by a recent string of decriminalisation rulings in Caribbean countries. This strategy has the potential to bring legal and policy changes that are ahead of social attitudes. That’s been the case in Nepal, where there’s still stigma, social bias and discrimination, and in Nepal’s often fractious politics, some politicians seek to capitalise on that.
Globally, progress towards the recognition of LGBTQI+ rights is a much stronger trend than regression. But steps forward are inevitably followed by an anti-rights backlash, combined with politically opportunistic efforts to mobilise anti-LGBQTI+ sentiment.
This backlash is seen in the USA, from which emanates most of the funding that enables anti-rights campaigning around the world, as well as in European countries, including Hungary, Spain and Turkey.
But it’s felt most strongly in global south countries, where forces opposing LGBTQI+ rights spread disinformation that these are some kind of western imposition. This is apparent in several countries in Africa – such as Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda – and Asia – including Indonesia, where a new criminal code effectively criminalises same-sex activity, and Malaysia, where politicians profit from vilifying LGBTQI+ people.
That’s why positive moves in Africa and Asia are so valuable: they offer hope to embattled LGBTQI+ people not just domestically but around the world.
Progress in Nepal should particularly give heart to activists in India, where the Supreme Court is currently considering a case demanding the recognition of same-sex marriage, and Japan, where attempts to win court judgments have encountered setbacks. The good news should also resonate in Thailand, a country with a relatively progressive reputation on LGBTQI+ rights but where same-sex marriage still isn’t allowed.
Shifting attitudes
Evidence from the countries that have adopted marriage equality shows that public attitudes to same-sex marriage tend to shift in the wake of legal change. In the countries that introduced it in the early years of this century, it now has majority support.
That’s also the case in Taiwan, which legalised same-sex marriage in 2019. And there, changing social attitudes have gone hand-in-hand with further reforms: in January, the government recognised same-sex marriages of Taiwanese people with foreign partners. In May, same-sex couples were given full adoption rights.
When it comes to changing social attitudes in Nepal, the annual roster of Pride events – the main Nepali Pride Parade held each June, a trans parade in December and an LGBQTI+ women’s rally that marks International Women’s Day each March – will remain vital spaces to make LGBTQI+ people more visible and assert their right to exist in public space.
Nepali civil society will hope that by the next Pride event, the law will have changed. But they’ll do more than hope. They’ll keep campaigning until the law is changed – and after that, they’ll stay alert to backlash and keep pushing back against discrimination.
August the best month for average stock market performance? Or is it the worst?
The answer depends on the period of stock-market history you examine. Over the 90 years from the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s DJIA, +0.50%
inception in 1896 until 1986, August on average was far ahead of the other months — more than four times larger, as you can see from the table below. August outperformed the other months’ average by 1.4 percentage points. This difference is significant at the 95% confidence level that statisticians often use when determining if a pattern is genuine.
In the years since then, in contrast, August has been the worst month for the stock market, on average, lagging the other months’ average by 1.7 percentage points. Since 1986, in fact, August has been a worse month for the stock market than even September, whose reputation for stock market losses is widely known.
August’s average DJIA return
Average return of all other months
August’s rank among all 12 months
1896 to 1986
+1.8%
+0.4%
1st
After 1986
-0.8%
+0.9%
12th
If the 36 years since 1986 were all that statisticians had to go on, they would conclude that August’s underperformance was significant at the 95% confidence level — just the opposite of the conclusion that emerges from the 90 years prior. But when analyzing the Dow’s entire history since 1896, August’s performance is no better or worse than average.
This August, in order to use history as a basis for investing, you’d first need to come up with a plausible explanation of what changed in the 1980s that caused August to swing from best to worst.
Though I’m not aware of any such explanation, it’s always possible that one exists. To search for it, I analyzed monthly values back to 1900 for the Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) index that was created by Scott Baker of Northwestern University, Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University, and Steven Davis of the University of Chicago. We know from Finance 101 that the stock market responds to changes in economic uncertainty, so we’d be onto a possible explanation of August’s seasonal tendencies if the EPU underwent some fundamental change in 1986.
But no such change shows up in the data. August’s average EPU level is no different than for any of the other months of the calendar, either before or after 1986.
Another possible explanation might trace to investor sentiment. To investigate that possibility, I analyzed stock market timers’ average recommended equity exposure levels, as measured by the Hulbert Stock Newsletter Sentiment Index (HSNSI). I was looking to see if, after 1986, the HSNSI was significantly different at the beginning of August than in other months, on average. The answer is “no.”
A plausible explanation might still exist for August’s change of fortune beginning in the mid-1980s, notwithstanding my inability to find one. But absent such an explanation, the most likely explanation is that it’s a random fluke.
It would hardly be a surprise if randomness is the culprit. Most of the patterns that capture Wall Street’s attention are in fact nothing more than statistical noise. The reason we nevertheless insist that significant patterns exist is because — as numerous psychological studies have shown — we’re hardwired to find patterns even in randomness.
That’s why your default reaction to all alleged patterns, not just those involving August, should be skepticism. The odds are overwhelming that they aren’t genuine. Only if those patterns can survive the scrutiny of a skeptical statistician should you even begin to be interested.
Mark Hulbert is a regular contributor to MarketWatch. His Hulbert Ratings tracks investment newsletters that pay a flat fee to be audited. He can be reached at mark@hulbertratings.com
Opinion by Elias Yousif, Rachel Stohl (washington dc)
Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 28 (IPS) – The Biden administration’s decision to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions, a weapon widely banned for the inherent dangers they pose to non-combatants, is risky.
In addition to the immediate and long-term humanitarian consequences, the transfer of clusters jeopardizes the domestic and international political consensus around support for Ukraine which will be instrumental in ensuring military assistance can be sustained for the long haul.
Just a day before triumphantly announcing the final destruction of the remaining U.S. chemical weapons arsenal, the Biden administration revealed it was approving the export of another internationally banned weapon – cluster munitions to Ukraine.
The decision comes in spite of strong opposition from lawmakers, human rights defenders, and even U.S. allies involved in the military aid effort to Ukraine. The controversy reflects the globally recognized risk cluster munitions – projectiles that break apart and disperse dozens of smaller munitions – pose to civilians.
Though some have argued the provision of these intentionally condemned munitions may provide some battlefield advantage to Ukraine, they also pose serious humanitarian and strategic dangers that could jeopardize both civilian protection imperatives as well as the long-term sustainability of Ukraine’s international military aid enterprise.
Cluster munitions are a category of ordinance that breaks apart in mid-air, dispersing smaller sub-munitions over a large area, sometimes as wide as several football fields. Beyond the inherently imprecise nature of these weapons, many of the bomblets they scatter fail to detonate, leaving behind a large blanketing of unexploded ordnance that presents an enduring threat to civilians, especially curious children.
Accordingly, non-combatants make up the vast majority of those killed by cluster munition duds, with tens of thousands of civilian casualties since the 1960’s, including many that occur years after conflict has subsided.
More than 100 countries, including most of the United States’ closest allies, have signed on to an international convention banning their use or transfer and U.S. law prohibits the export of cluster munitions with a dud rate of over 1%, lower than even the most generous estimates of the ordnance being sent to Ukraine.
Additionally, the cluster munitions the United States is sending to Ukraine, known as Dual-Purpose Improved Cluster Munitions (DPICMS), are from old stockpiles with older fuses that have few safety features. DPICM duds are especially dangerous.
The legal and normative taboo, growing international consensus, and U.S. prohibitions surrounding cluster munitions place the Biden administration’s decision to proceed with their transfer to Kyiv in an especially harsh light.
Both Kyiv and Washington have argued that these weapons are essential for Ukraine’s efforts to dislodge occupying Russian forces, especially amidst a Ukrainian offensive that has been proceeding more slowly than its backers had hoped.
Some analysts have argued that these weapons provide a unique battlefield capability for Ukrainian forces, especially in terms of addressing Russia’s extensive networks of defensive trenches.
However, the U.S. government has explained that a major factor in their decision to provide cluster munitions rests on a broader effort to shore up dwindling Ukrainian and Western stockpiles of munitions, allowing the United States to draw from an alternative source without further depleting its own supplies of conventional artillery.
In other words, these munitions are meant to extend the time available to Ukraine to conduct its summer offensive by alleviating a supply crunch in shells made more acute by a slow-moving effort dependent on attrition of enemy defenses.
Despite these military-based rationales, the risks the provision of these weapons pose are both immediate and long-term, with consequences that extend beyond the summer offensive and beyond the war in Ukraine. In the first place, the inherently indiscriminate nature of cluster munitions adds to the civilian protection risks for Ukrainian civilians.
Indeed, cluster munitions used in Ukraine, overwhelmingly by Russian forces but also by Ukrainian troops, have already resulted in numerous civilian casualties. Moreover, the use of cluster munitions will increase the risks to Ukrainian troops by adding especially sensitive unexploded ordnance to already dangerous terrain they will have to traverse as they press forward with their offensive.
It is why, in addition to their humanitarian concerns, many veterans, including Retired Lt. General Mark Hartling, have voiced their own reservations about the transfer decision.
And while it has been suggested that these munitions will be used overwhelmingly in the open countryside and in areas already heavily mined by Russian forces, once these munitions are transferred it will be difficult for the United States to influence how they are employed.
Should fighting move to more densely populated areas, the temptation to continue to use all available weapons will be strong and could result in scenes reminiscent of Moscow’s widely condemned and ongoing use of cluster munitions in urban centers, especially during the early stages of the war.
The Biden administration insists it has assurances from Kyiv that these weapons will be used under strict conditions meant to limit civilian harm. But while Ukraine has taken great pains to limit civilian casualties, its fidelity to past commitments around the use of U.S.-origin weapons has beenimperfect, adding to concerns around the efficacy of the risk mitigation measures the Biden team has put in place.
Secondly, using these cluster munitions will complicate and exacerbate what is already going to be a daunting demining enterprise.
Compared to their unitary munition counterparts, cluster munitions scatter far more dud weapons, not only adding to the volume of ordnance that will eventually need to be cleared but also to the challenge of finding them.
Cluster munitions have notoriously high dud rates, with even the most generous assessments placing the figure at between 2-14%. But even those numbers are thought to be undercounts, with significant variation in testing and real-world application, and without any meaningful transparency into how the U.S. government has conducted its assessments.
The administration says that it is transferring munitions with a dud rate of 2.5% – a figure that is both difficult to verify and in violation of U.S. law. Some analysis suggests that the failure rate of the weapons being transferred to Kyiv is far higher, with the potential to litter the region with hundreds of thousands of additional pieces of unexploded ordnance.
Additionally, a rapid expenditure of the supposedly lower dud rate munitions in Ukraine could lead the administration to start drawing down from even higher dud rate stocks, raising the risks of civilian harm and long-term humanitarian dilemmas.
Strategically, the transfer of these controversial weapons systems risks creating fissures in Kyiv’s alliance of international supporters which has been critical to Ukraine’s defense. Consensus among Ukraine’s backers has both enabled a more robust military assistance enterprise and denied from Moscow the opportunity to prey upon political divisions in the West to deter security assistance efforts.
Accordingly, electing to transfer weapons systems banned by most NATO members offers a compelling point of contention among governments aiding Kyiv’s defense, as well as polarizes even further domestic support for backing Ukraine. This is especially true in Europe, where public support for Ukraine remains sizable but divisive.
With no end to this conflict in sight, and with most analysts agreeing Ukraine will depend on international support for the long term, the provision of cluster munitions risks eroding the enduring political support necessary to sustain military assistance to Ukraine for the long haul.
Beyond Ukraine, the transfer of clusters sends a dangerous signal about the United States’ commitment to civilian protection and international norms. Whatever conditions the United States may say it is placing on its package to Ukraine, other governments across the world will feel their justifications for using, stockpiling, or selling cluster munitions are made far stronger.
Undermining the global taboo around these weapons risks making cluster munitions use more likely, including by governments with far less discerning human rights practices.
The Biden administration is well justified in providing Kyiv the means to defend itself against Russia’s illegal war of conquest. Moscow’s irredentism has wrought unimaginable damage to the country and people of Ukraine and shattered global norms around sovereignty, security, and civilian protection.
But beyond creating a lasting, life-threatening hazard for Ukrainian civilians, providing cluster munitions to Ukraine risks eroding the moral authority of the cause, and narrows the reputational gap that has both distinguished Kyiv’s defense from Moscow’s invasion and sustained its lifeline of international military support.
Arguments in favor of providing cluster munitions are narrow in scope and should not outweigh international law, norms, and the long-term interests of Ukraine’s people and its military aid enterprise.
Elias Yousif is a Research Analyst with the Stimson Center’s Conventional Defense Program. His research focuses on the global arms trade and arms control, issues related to remote warfare and use of force, and international security cooperation and child soldiers’ prevention.
Rachel Stohl is a Vice President of Research Programs at the Stimson Center and Director of the Conventional Defense Program. Prior to joining Stimson, Stohl was an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, from 2009-2011. She was a Senior Analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C. from 1998-2009.
The opportunity to build something great at Tauranga’s civic heart is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, writes Sonya Bateson. Photo / George Novak
OPINION
“It’s not all about economics.”
These were the words of investment advisor Edward Guy at a Tauranga City Council meeting about the future civic precinct project earlier this week.
The planned civic precinct, which has been given the name Te Manawataki o Te Papa, will house new civic buildings including a library, community hub, museum, exhibition gallery and civic whare, and will incorporate upgrades to Baycourt and the Tauranga Art Gallery.
Taxpayers are expected to pay up to $151.5 million for the build, as well as projected annual running costs of $26m.
“It’s not all about economics,’ he told the meeting.
As a ratepayer, I’m firmly on Guy’s side on this one. Nothing is ever all about economics. It plays a big role, sure, but there’s always more to it than that.
Look at Tauranga’s city centre. Have you been there recently? I was there at the weekend.
Lack of accessible information in sign language has made online platforms, education, healthcare inaccessible for the Deaf due to non-provision of information in sign language formats. Credit: Shutterstock.
Opinion by Egwelu Timothy (kampala)
Inter Press Service
KAMPALA, Jul 27 (IPS) – Every July, the disability community honors its history, accomplishments, and experiences during Disability Pride Month. One such group is the deaf community in Uganda, which makes up 3.4% of the population.
Members of the Deaf community celebrate the positive aspects of deaf culture, activism, and the pride of being Deaf, and feel value. But, we also recognize our oppression and know that we deserve better than the prevalent discrimination, exclusions and inaccessibility we regularly face.
While the inclusion of Deaf persons in organisations such as Uganda National Association of the Deaf (UNAD) , Deaf Youth Advocacy Network, and National Union of Persons with Disabilities enables us to help with some development of policies and best practices, merely having representation in consultations is not enough.
All mainstream laws, policies and services also must be accessible to Deaf persons in sign language beforehand so we can contribute and guide language and outcomes.
Too often, however, Deaf persons are excluded. For instance, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an unfortunate digital gap for over 20,000 Deaf persons who use assistive devices like smart phones to access information.
Today, generally, lack of accessible information in sign language has made online platforms, education, healthcare inaccessible for the Deaf due to non-provision of information in sign language formats.
Furthermore, the lack of adequate support services such as access to interpretation, Sexual Reproductive Health, mental health services and social protection are concerning. In policy consultations, there is no meaningful participation as 60% of deaf participants cannot comprehend the written law.
The Constitution of Uganda is the second in the world to recognize the right to sign language both within the body and under the Cultural Objective Principle XXIV (iii) of the National Directives of State Policy. Article 21(1) on equality before the law, under the law and all spheres of life is equally instrumental.
These are further operationalised under the Persons with Disability Act of 2020. Most notably under Section 6, 7, 9 and 12 on non-discrimination under provision of education and general commercial services, health and employment. Despite this plethora of legal backing, the provision of information in sign language is still lacking.
The Constitution and other relevant laws such as the Penal code Act chapter 120 laws of Uganda are similarly inaccessible in sign language therefore ignorance of law is guaranteed for deaf persons despite it being no exception to criminal liability.
There is widespread agreement around the world that governments and institutions must take proactive measures to ensure that deaf persons have equal access to mainstream policies, systems, and services.
This includes providing accessible communication, transportation, education, healthcare, employment opportunities, and other essential services. However, the law and appropriate implementation are two different things.
Furthermore, regardless of the sector, policymakers must ensure that sign language accessibility is considered from the outset of policy development and implementation. They must engage Deaf persons and their representative organizations in meaningful consultation to understand their needs, preferences, and priorities.
Policymakers must also ensure that the Deaf have equal protection under the law to engage in the policy formulation process, voice their opinions, and influence decision-making. This includes providing accessible venues, information, formats, and technologies to facilitate their participation. In the recent consultations on development of the policy guidelines for television access, I applaud Uganda Communication Commission for inviting stakeholders from the various organisations to partipate in the consultancies and ensuring accesibility to sign language.
To sum up, it is critical for a truly inclusive and accessible society that Deaf persons are involved in the decision-making processes. However, it is only feasible if policies can be understood, deaf people can actually attend meetings, and their voices are heard and taken seriously. In this Disability Pride month, let’s level the playing field and ensure that everyone can participate in meaningful ways to make a truly inclusive society.
Egwelu Timothy is a lawyer and a disability policy & inclusion consultant
Banc of California Inc.’s proposed agreement to acquire PacWest Bancorp. helped send regional-bank stocks considerably higher on Wednesday. But even after a two-day increase of 12% for its shares, the acquiring bank remains the favorite name among analysts covering regional players in the U.S.
The merger agreement was announced after the market close on Tuesday, but the rumor mill had already sent Banc of California’s BANC, +0.62%
stock up by 11% that day. Then on Wednesday, shares of PacWest Bancorp PACW, +26.92%
shot up 27% to $9.76, which was above the estimated takeout value of $9.60 a share when the deal was announced. The merger deal, if approved by both banks’ shareholders, will also include a $400 million investment from Warburg Pincus LLC and Centerbridge Partners L.P.
A screen of regional banks by rating and stock-price target is below.
With PacWest closing above the initial per-share deal valuation, it is fair to wonder whether or not its shareholders will vote to approve the agreement. In a note to clients on Wednesday, Wedbush analyst David Chiaverini called Banc of California’s offer “fair, but not overwhelmingly attractive,” and wrote that PacWest was “a likely seller before the mini banking crisis occurred in March.”
While Chiaverini went on to predict the deal’s approval by PacWest’s shareholders, he added that he “wouldn’t be surprised if there were some dissent among a minority of shareholders [which could] possibly open the door to the potential emergence of a third-party bid.”
More broadly, Odeon Capital analyst Dick Bove wrote to clients on Wednesday that the merger deal, along with increasing involvement of private-equity firms in lending businesses, the expected enhancement of regulatory capital requirements for banks and other factors could lead to more consolidation among smaller banks.
He went on to write that we might be entering a period for the banking industry similar to the 1990s, “when rules were being changed and acquisitions were rampant,” which “created new investment opportunities.”
The SPDR S&P Regional Banking exchange-traded fund KRE, +4.74%
rose 5% on Wednesday but was still down 17% for 2023, while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, +0.02%
was up 19%, both excluding dividends.
KRE holds 139 stocks, with 98 covered by at least five analysts working for brokerage firms polled by FactSet. Out of those 98 banks, 45 have majority “buy” ratings among the analysts. Among those 45, here are the 10 with the most upside potential over the next 12 months, implied by consensus price targets:
Any stock screen can only be a starting point when considering whether or not to invest. If you see any stocks of interest here, you should do your own research to form your own opinion.
Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
Inter Press Service
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jul 26 (IPS) – Currency values and foreign exchange rates change for many reasons, largely following market perceptions, regardless of fundamentals. Market speculation has worsened volatility, instability and fragility in most economies, especially of small, open, developing countries.
US Fed pushing up interest rates
For no analytical rhyme or reason, US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) chairman Jerome Powell insists on raising interest rates until inflation is brought under 2% yearly. Obliged to follow the US Fed, most central banks have raised interest rates, especially since early 2022.
Jomo Kwame SundaramThe US dollar or greenback’s strengthening has been largely due to aggressive Fed interest rate hikes. Undoubtedly, inflation has been rising, especially since last year. But there are different types of inflation, with different implications, which should be differentiated by nature and cause.
Typically, inflationary episodes are due to either demand pull or supply push. With rentier behaviour better recognized, there is now more attention to asset price and profit-driven inflation, e.g., ‘sellers inflation’ due to price-fixing in monopolistic and oligopolistic conditions.
Recent international price increases are widely seen as due to new Cold War measures since Obama, Trump presidency initiatives, COVID-19 pandemic responses, as well as Ukraine War economic sanctions.
These are all supply-side constraints, rather than demand-side or other causes of inflation.
The Fed chair’s pretext for raising interest rates is to get inflation down to 2%. But bringing inflation under 2% – the fetishized, but nonetheless arbitrary Fed and almost universal central bank inflation target – only reduces demand, without addressing supply-side inflation.
But there is no analytical – theoretical or empirical – justification for this completely arbitrary 2% inflation limit fetish. Thus, raising interest rates to address supply-side inflation is akin to prescribing and taking the wrong medicine for an ailment.
Fed driving world to stagnation
Thus, raising interest rates to suppress demand cannot be expected to address such supply-side driven inflation. Instead, tighter credit is likely to further depress economic growth and employment, worsening living conditions.
Increasing interest rates is expected to reduce expenditure for consumption or investment. Thus, raising the costs of funds is supposed to reduce demand as well as ensuing price increases.
Earlier research – e.g., by then World Bank chief economist Michael Bruno, with William Easterly, and by Stan Fischer and Rudiger Dornbusch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – found even low double-digit inflation to be growth-enhancing.
The Milton Friedman-inspired notion of a ‘non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment’ (NAIRU) also implies Fed interest rate hikes inappropriate and unnecessarily contractionary when inflation is not accelerating. US consumer price increases have decelerated since mid-2022, meaning inflation has not been accelerating for over a year.
At least two conservative monetary economists with Nobel laureates have reminded the world how such Fed interventions triggered US contractions, abruptly ending economic recoveries. Although not discussed by them, the same Fed interventions also triggered international recessions.
Friedman showed how the Fed ended the US recovery from 1937 at the start of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s second presidential term. Recent US Fed chair Ben Bernanke and his colleagues also showed how similar Fed policies caused stagflation after the 1970s’ oil price hikes.
De-dollarization?
However, the US dollar has not been strengthening much in recent months. The greenback has been slipping since mid-2023 despite continuing Fed interest rate hikes a full year after consumer price increases stopped accelerating in mid-2022.
Many blame recent greenback depreciation on ‘de-dollarization’, ironically accelerated by US sanctions against its rivals. Such illegal sanctions have disrupted financial payments, investment flows, dispute settlement mechanisms and other longstanding economic processes and arrangements authorized by the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and UN charters.
Even the ‘rule of law’ – long favouring the US, other rich countries and transnational corporate interests – has been ‘suspended’ for ‘reasons of state’ due to economic warfare which continues to escalate. Unilateral asset and technology expropriation has been justified as necessary to ‘de-risk’ for ‘national security’ and other such considerations.
Horns of currency dilemma
For many monetary authorities, the choice is between a weak currency and higher interest rates. With growing financialization over recent decades, big finance has become much more influential, typically demanding higher interest income and stronger currencies.
Central bank independence – from the political executive and legislative processes – has enabled financial lobbies to influence policymaking even more. For example, Malaysia’s household debt share of national output rose from 47% in 2000 to over four-fifths before the COVID-19 pandemic, and 81% in 2022.
There is little reason to believe recent exchange rates have been due to ‘economic fundamentals’. Currencies of countries with persistent trade and current account deficits have strengthened, while others with sustained surpluses have declined. Instead, relative interest rate changes recently appear to explain more.
Thus, both the Japanese yen and Chinese renminbi depreciated by at least six per cent against the US dollar, at least before its recent tumble. By contrast, British pound sterling has appreciated against the greenback despite the dismal state of its real economy.
The progress made in HIV prevention is nothing short of a global success story. It is time that TB caught up to HIV. Medicine is simply too advanced for us to tolerate how one disease can be beaten back yet another continues to flourish. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS.
Opinion by Violet Chihota (johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 26 (IPS) – Before COVID-19 came along, the two most lethal infectious diseases were HIV and tuberculosis (TB). Even though HIV still lingers, with 1.5 million people contracting the infection every year, epidemiologists point to the availability of many HIV prevention options as a primary reason for the decreasing caseload.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over the past two decades, new HIV infections decreased by 49%, HIV-related deaths decreased by 61% and an estimated 18.6 million lives were saved because of new treatments that minimise the infection and prevent its spread.
We have so many options for HIV prevention at our disposal, including the dapivirine vaginal ring, oral Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), harm reduction for people who use drugs, condoms for both men and women, voluntary medical male circumcision and the recently approved long-acting cabotegravir, with other options in development.
We have a suite of prevention tools because everyone is different, and people need to be able to choose their methods according to the way they live their lives. We observe a similar abundance of choice within family planning with oral pills, a variety of injectables, intra-uterine devices and condoms—we share this prevention method with HIV programs.
We do not have this many options for TB prevention, but the world needs to adapt to embrace choice if we are to meet the globally agreed-upon goal of reducing TB deaths by 90% by 2030—referred to as the “End TB targets.”
The urgency of the need is clear: an estimated 1.6 million people lost their lives to the disease in 2021, the second consecutive year the death toll went up after 14 years of progress. In Africa, an estimated 2.5 million people contracted the disease in 2021, one million of which were never diagnosed and treated.
Yet there are glimmers of good news. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, estimates of TB incidence have slowly declined over the past few years in Angola, Ethiopia, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia—all countries with high burdens of TB.
Of these countries, Zambia has also had success in finding and diagnosing an increasing number of these infections; the pandemic impacted the surveillance efforts of the other governments.
As for HIV, there is no effective vaccine to prevent TB in adults: the BCG vaccine only prevents severe TB in children. However, there are ways to prevent TB when someone is potentially exposed to an infected person. In the workplace or when a family member at home becomes sick, for example, prevention starts with masking, which was traditionally used in clinical care settings. The other ways work through prophylactic regimens. For TB, we initially only had isoniazid that could be taken for six, nine, 12 or 36 months depending on country guidelines, but now we have shorter regimens that allow for patient choice.
These options include regimens lasting one (1HP) and three months (3HP), with different combinations of the antibiotic drugs rifapentine and isoniazid, all with vitamin B6 supplements to help counter some of the side effects of treatment. There is also a three-month regimen of rifampicin and isoniazid (often given to children and adolescents) and a four-month regimen of rifampicin alone. Longer courses of isoniazid taken for 6–36 months also remain options, though most people are eligible to take a shorter rifapentine- or rifampicin-based regimen and should be given the choice to do so.
We need to do a better job of making sure that people at risk of TB have access to the full range of prevention options. A recent peer-reviewed study underlines this point, estimating that tracing the personal contacts of people diagnosed with TB and providing them with prevention treatment would save the lives of 700,000 children under the age of 15 and 150,000 adults by 2035.
Even the financial benefits of the prevention program, in terms of increased economic productivity, would outweigh the costs. Nobody questions the need to have options for HIV prevention or family planning, but questions arise when trying to roll out a one-month TB prevention regimen when there’s already a three-month regimen available. We need them all. We also need to collect more data to differentiate which prevention regimens are best for each patient type to ensure success.
The WHO guidelines for preventive TB treatment create the possibility of choice among TB preventive treatments by not ranking the regimens by preference or effectiveness. But health care facilities and outreach programs need to embrace that range of options and make sure that a choice exists in practice. Supply chains may limit choice initially, but if there is no demand for more options from providers, there is no impetus to expand the supply chains.
The progress made in HIV prevention is nothing short of a global success story. It took a combination of scientific ingenuity and innovation, combined with an intensive dedication of resources that made a range of preventive options available around the world.
It is time that TB caught up to HIV. Medicine is simply too advanced for us to tolerate how one disease can be beaten back yet another continues to flourish.
Violet Chihota is an Adjunct Associate Professor and Chief Specialist Scientist at the Aurum Institute. She has been a researcher in global health for over 10 years, designing and managing the conduct of clinical research studies in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Cameroon, Georgia, India and Malaysia.
KABUL, Afghanistan, Jul 26 (IPS) – The needs of Afghanistan’s children and families are immense. So are the efforts of those supporting them: teams of community workers made up of family members, teachers in community-based schools, vaccinators, and health workers working around the clock to bring life-saving services in the face of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.
I recently traveled to eastern Afghanistan to meet some of the inspiring heroes who, this year already, helped UNICEF reach around 19 million children and their families with health and nutrition services.
UNICEF’s incredible health and nutrition response is supported by people across Afghan society. One of them is Mangal, a hero on two wheels. Every morning, Mangal picks up vaccines at a UNICEF-supported district hospital.
He carefully packs them in a cooler, which he straps to his motorbike before setting off to remote villages. Mangal braves rough, narrow roads, the scorching heat, and genuine security risks.
“I ride for nine kilometres every day to bring these vaccines to the people who need them,” he tells me. “They understand how important it is to protect their children from diseases. They don’t need any persuasion to come here. They greet me with gratitude and hope.”?
A doctor prescribes medicine for mothers and children during a UNICEF-supported mobile health and nutrition team visit. Credit: Karim / UNICEF
Some of Mangal’s supplies land here, with a UNICEF-supported mobile health and nutrition team providing services straight to the communities who need them most and who have no other way to access health care.
Like so much of UNICEF’s health and nutrition work across Afghanistan, these programmes are game-changers.
But these teams have their work cut out for them.
“Nearly half of all children under five in Afghanistan are malnourished, a truly devastating number,” UNICEF’s head of nutrition, Melanie Galvin, tells me. “Some 875,000 of them are expected to need treatment for severe acute malnutrition, the most lethal form of undernutrition and one of the top threats to child survival across the globe.”
Ramping up the response means staffing up the response, too. UNICEF has more than doubled the number of places where a child can be treated.
“Last year we put more nutrition nurses and nutrition counsellors into overflowing hospitals,” Melanie says. “We put them directly into communities where people live. We put them into mobile clinics that reach very small and isolated populations. We put them into day care centre spaces in poor urban areas.”
A child receives RUTF during a visit by a UNICEF-supported mobile health and nutrition team. Credit Karim/UNICEF
Mobile health and nutrition teams are critical in reaching rural areas with basic services like pre-natal checkups, vaccinations, psycho-social counselling, and ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF). It’s a heartbreaking condition to see up close. In this photo, little Zarmina receives an RUTF sachet from Melanie.
RUTF really is a magical paste – energy dense and full of micronutrients. Used to treat severe acute malnutrition, also known as severe wasting, RUTF is made using peanuts, sugar, milk powder, oil, vitamins and minerals, and has helped treat millions of children in Afghanistan.
As we tour a hospital, Dr. Fouzia Shafique, UNICEF Afghanistan’s Principal Health Advisor, explains how UNICEF has managed to support so many children, despite all the challenges.
“Health clinics, family teams of community workers, community-based schools, vaccinators, and trained female health workers,” she tells me. Donors such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank have also been critical partners, helping UNICEF provide care even in difficult-to-reach areas of the country.
So many of the life-saving interventions I encountered on my mission are made possible by the tireless work of UNICEF staff such as Dr. Shafique and Dr. Nafi Kakar, who fill a multitude of roles, including inspecting vaccines and parts of the cold chain system that is used to store them.
Helping families access quality primary and secondary health care means supporting thousands of health facilities, covering operating costs, paying the salaries of tens of thousands of health workers, and procuring and distributing medical supplies.
Together, these efforts are helping UNICEF reach many of the more than 15 million children in Afghanistan who need support. It’s a difficult number to comprehend, but easier to appreciate when you meet some of those very same children.
There’s the baby fighting for her life in an incubator; the children working for their families in fields of unexploded mines; the children grappling with the anxieties and pressures of poverty; or the girls deprived of their greatest hope – education. Each child is like my own. Unique. Each child is special.
The smiles say it all: For Dr. Shafique and young girls in Afghanistan, it’s been a good day. But there remains so much to do. Supporting the health and well-being of people in Afghanistan isn’t only about access to health services, it’s also about the protection of rights – notably, ensuring rights and freedoms for women and girls.
Given the enormity of UNICEF’s role in the health and nutrition sector, it’s critical for UNICEF – and for children in Afghanistan – that funding is maintained. So that the country’s children can grow up safe, healthy and be the heroes in their own stories.
Source: UNICEF Blog
The UNICEF Blog promotes children’s rights and well-being, and ideas about ways to improve their lives and the lives of their families. It also brings insights and opinions from the world’s leading child rights experts and accounts from UNICEF’s staff on the ground in more than 190 countries and territories. The opinions expressed on the UNICEF Blog are those of the author(s) and may not necessarily reflect UNICEF’s official position.
James Elder is UNICEF Spokesperson in Afghanistan.
ALBANY, USA, Jul 25 (IPS) – Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the immensely destructive Ukraine War lies in the fact that it could have been averted. The most obvious way was for the Russian government to abandon its plan for the military conquest of Ukraine.
The Problem of Russian Policy
The problem on this score, though, was that Vladimir Putin was determined to revive Russia’s “great power” status. Although his predecessors had signed the UN Charter (which prohibits the “use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”), as well as the Budapest Memorandum and the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership (both of which specifically committed the Russian government to respecting Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity), Putin was an ambitious ruler, determined to restore what he considered Russia’s imperial grandeur.
This approach led not only to Russian military intervention in Middle Eastern and African nations, but to retaking control of nations previously dominated by Russia. These nations included Ukraine, which Putin regarded, contrary to history and international agreements, as “Russian land.”
As a result, what began in 2014 as the Russian military seizure of Crimea and the arming of a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine gradually evolved into the full-scale invasion of February 2022?the largest, most devastating military operation in Europe since World War II, with the potential for the catastrophic explosion of the giant Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and even the outbreak of nuclear war.
The official justifications for these acts of aggression, trumpeted by the Kremlin and its apologists, were quite flimsy. Prominent among them was the claim that Ukraine’s accession to NATO posed an existential danger to Russia.
In fact, though, in 2014?or even in 2022?Ukraine was unlikely to join NATO because key NATO members opposed its admission. Also, NATO, founded in 1949, had never started a war with Russia and had never shown any intention of doing so.
The reality was that, like the U.S. invasion of Iraq nearly two decades before, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was out of line with both international law and the imperatives of national security. It was a war of choice organized by a power-hungry ruler.
The Problem of UN Weakness
On a deeper level, the war was avoidable because the United Nations, established to guarantee peace and international security, did not take the action necessary to stop the war from occurring or to end it.
Admittedly, the United Nations did repeatedly condemn the Russian invasion, occupation, and annexation of Ukraine. On March 27, 2014, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution by a vote of 100 nations to 11 (with 58 abstentions), denouncing the Russian military seizure and annexation of Crimea.
On March 2, 2022, by a vote of 141 nations to 5 (with 35 abstentions), it called for the immediate and complete withdrawal of Russian military forces from Ukraine. In a ruling on the legality of the Russian invasion, the International Court of Justice, by a vote of 13 to 2, proclaimed that Russia should immediately suspend its invasion of Ukraine.
That fall, when Russia began annexing the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, the UN Secretary-General denounced that action as flouting “the purposes and principles of the United Nations,” while the UN General Assembly, by a vote of 143 nations to 5 (with 35 abstentions), called on all countries to refuse to recognize Russia’s “illegal annexation” of Ukrainian land.
Tragically, this principled defense of international law was not accompanied by measures to enforce it. At meetings of the UN Security Council, the UN entity tasked with maintaining peace, the Russian government simply vetoed UN action. Nor did the UN General Assembly circumvent the Security Council’s paralysis by acting on its own. Instead, the United Nations showed itself well-meaning but ineffectual.
This weakness on matters of international security was not accidental. Nations?and particularly powerful nations?had long preferred to keep international organizations weak, for the creation of stronger international institutions would curb their own influence.
Naturally, then, they saw to it that the UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations, could act on international security issues only by a unanimous vote of its membership. And even this constricted authority proved too much for the U.S. government, which refused to join the League.
During the Ukraine War, Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky publicly lamented this inability of the United Nations to enforce its mandate. “The wars of the past have prompted our predecessors to create institutions that should protect us from war,” he remarked in March 2022, “but they unfortunately don’t work.”
In this context, he called for the creation of “a union of responsible countries . . . to stop conflicts” and to “keep the peace.”
What Still Might Be Done
The need to strengthen the United Nations and, thereby, enable it to keep the peace, has been widely recognized. To secure this goal, proposals have been made over the years to emphasize UN preventive diplomacy and to reform the UN Security Council.
More recently, UN reformers have championed deploying UN staff (including senior mediators) rapidly to conflict zones, expanding the Security Council, and drawing upon the General Assembly for action when the Security Council fails to act. These and other reform measures could be addressed by the world organization’s Summit for the Future, planned for 2024.
In the meantime, it remains possible that the Ukraine War might come to an end through related action. One possibility is that the Russian government will conclude that its military conquest of Ukraine has become too costly in terms of lives, resources, and internal stability to continue.
Another is that the countries of the world, fed up with disastrous wars, will finally empower the United Nations to safeguard international peace and security. Either or both would be welcomed by people in Ukraine and around the globe.
Lawrence S. Wittner (https://www.lawrenceswittner.com/ ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany, the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press) and other books on international issues, and a board member of the Citizens for Global Solutions Education Fund.
Source: Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS) which envisions a peaceful, free, just, and sustainable world community
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the official policy of Citizens for Global Solutions.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jul 24 (IPS) – At a meeting with European and Latin American leaders in Brussels this July, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva reiterated the bold commitment he had made in his first international speech as president-elect, when he attended the COP27 climate summit in November 2022: bringing Amazon deforestation down to zero by 2030.
Lula’s presence at COP27 was a signal to the world that Brazil was willing to become the climate champion it needs to be. Following a request by the Brazilian Forum of NGOs and Social Movements for Environment and Development, Lula offered to host the 2025 climate summit in Brazil; it has now been confirmed that COP30 will be held in Belém, gateway to the Amazon River.
At COP27 Lula also said he intended to revive and modernise the 45-year old Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation, a body bringing together the eight Amazonian countries – Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela – to take concerted steps to protect the Amazon rainforest.
Four years of regression
In his four years in office, Lula’s far-right climate-denier predecessor Jair Bolsonaro dismantled environmental protections and paralysed key environmental agencies by cutting their funding and staff. He vilified civil society, criminalised activists and discredited the media. He allowed deforestation to proceed at an astonishing pace and emboldened businesses to grab land, clear it for agriculture by starting fires and carry out illegal logging and mining.
Under Bolsonaro, already embattled Indigenous communities and activists became even more vulnerable to attacks. By encouraging environmental plunder, including on protected and Indigenous land, the government enabled violence against environmental and Indigenous peoples’ rights defenders. A blatant example was the murder of Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips in June 2022. The two were ambushed and killed on the orders of the head of an illegal transnational fishing network. Both the material and intellectual authors of the crimes have now been charged and await trial.
Reversing the regression
Having being elected on a promise to reverse environmental destruction, the new administration has sought to restructure and resource monitoring and enforcement institutions. It strengthened the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), the federal agency in charge of enforcing environmental policy, and the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (FUNAI), which for the first time is now headed by an Indigenous person, Joenia Wapichana.
Bolsonaro had transferred FUNAI to the Ministry of Agriculture, run by a leader of the congressional agribusiness caucus. Instead of protecting Indigenous land, it enabled deforestation and the expansion of agribusiness.
In contrast, Lula’s first political gestures were to create a new ministry for Indigenous peoples’ affairs, appointing Indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara to lead it, and to make Marina Silva, a leader of the environmentalist party Rede Sustentabilidade, Minister for the Environment, a position she had held between 2003 and 2008.
Lula also restored the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Amazon, launched in 2004 and implemented until Bolsonaro took over. In February, the government set up a Permanent Inter-Ministerial Commission for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation and Fires in Brazil to coordinate actions across 19 ministries and develop zero deforestation policies.
The strategy establishes a permanent federal government presence in vulnerable areas with the aim of eliminating illegal activities, setting up bases and using intelligence and satellite imagery to track criminal activity.
The newly appointed Federal Police’s Director for the Amazon and the Environment, Humberto Freire, launched a campaign to rid protected Indigenous land of illegal miners. It appears to be paying off: in July he announced that around 90 per cent of miners operating in Yanomami territory, Brazil’s largest protected Indigenous land, had been expelled. According to police sources, there were 19 mine-related deforestation alerts in April 2023 – compared to 444 in April 2022.
But the fight isn’t over. There are still a couple of thousand miners active and the criminal enterprises employing them remain very much alive. The key task of recovering damaged land and rivers can only begin once they’re all driven away for good. And an issue that cries out for international cooperation remains unresolved: violence and environmental degradation continue unabated in Yanomami communities across the border in Venezuela, and will only increase as illegal miners jump jurisdictions.
Achieving the ambitious zero-deforestation goal will require efforts on a much bigger scale than those of the past. And such efforts will further antagonise very powerful people.
Obstacles ahead
With the environmental agenda back on track, the pace of Amazon deforestation slowed down in the first six months of 2023, falling by 34 per cent compared to the same period in 2022. However, numbers still remain high and reductions are uneven, with two states – Roraima and Tocantins – showing increases. Deforestation is also still rising in another important part of Brazil’s environment, the Cerrado, where preservation areas are few and most deforestation happens on private properties.
For the Amazon, a crucial test will come in the second half of the year, when temperatures are higher. A stronger El Niño phase, with warming waters in the Pacific Ocean, will make the weather even drier and hotter than usual, helping fires spread fast. Anticipating this, IBAMA has scaled up its recruitment of firefighters to expand brigades in Indigenous and Black communities and conduct inspections and impose fines and embargoes. To discourage people from starting fires to clear land for agriculture, the agency prevents them putting that land to agricultural use.
But in the meantime, Brazil’s Congress has gone on the offensive. In June, the Senate made radical amendments to the bill on ministries sent by Lula, diluting the powers of the Ministries of Indigenous Peoples and Environment and limiting demarcation of Indigenous lands to those already occupied by communities by 1998, when the current constitution was enacted.
Indigenous leaders have complained that many communities weren’t on their land in 1998 because they’d been expelled over the course of centuries, and particularly during the 1964-1985 military dictatorship. They denounced the new law as ‘legal genocide’ and urged the president to veto it. Civil society has taken to the streets and social media to support the government’s environmental policies.
They face a formidable enemy. A recent report by the Brazilian Intelligence Agency exposed the political connections of illegal mining companies. Two business leaders directly associated with this criminal activity are active congressional lobbyists and maintain strong links with local politicians. They also stand accused of financing an attempted insurrection on 8 January.
Against these shady elites, civil society wields the most effective weapon at its disposal, shining a light on their dealings and letting them know that Brazil and the world are watching, and will remain vigilant for as long as it takes. The stakes are too high to drop the guard.
One of the hottest movies of the summer is the staggeringly good biopic “Oppenheimer,” about the man who oversaw the frantic race to develop the atomic bomb during World War II.
The atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on Aug 6, 1945 was a fission-style device. This also happens to be the same basic physics behind nuclear reactors that are in use today. It’s a reminder that technology can be, at its essence, agnostic: Whether it is used for malevolent or benevolent purposes (in nuclear fission’s instance, an instrument of death or clean, carbon-free electricity) depends upon the intent of the user.
These percentages are likely to rise as global demand for electricity — and concerns about global warming and climate change — rise. This will present opportunities for long-term oriented investors. The lion’s share of this demand — about 70%, says the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), will come from India, which the United Nations says is now the world’s most populous country, China, and Southeast Asia. Put another way, “the world’s growing demand for electricity is set to accelerate, adding more than double Japan’s current electricity consumption over the next three years,” says Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director.
While fossil fuels remain the dominant source of electricity generation worldwide — the Central Intelligence Agency estimates that it provides about 70% of America’s electricity, 71% of India’s and 62% of China’s, for example—the IEA report says future demand will be met almost exclusively from two sources: renewables and nuclear power. “We are close to a tipping point for power sector emissions,” the IEA says. “Governments now need to enable low-emissions sources to grow even faster and drive down emissions so that the world can ensure secure electricity supplies while reaching climate goals.”
“ The Biden administration is a big booster of nuclear energy. ”
It’s helpful that the Biden administration is a big booster of nuclear energy, which the White House sees as an integral part of its broader effort to move the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels. The Department of Energy says that the country’s 93 reactors generate more than half of America’s carbon-free electricity. But price pressures from wind, solar and natural gas (which the feds call “relatively clean” even though it emits about 60% of coal’s carbon levels) have putseveral reactors out of business in recent years.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill that Biden signed into law in November 2021 includes $6 billion, spread out over several years, for the so-called Civil Nuclear Credit Program, designed to keep reactors — and the high-paying jobs that come with them — running. If a plant were to close, it would “result in an increase in air pollutants because other types of power plants with higher air pollutants typically fill the void left by nuclear facilities,” the administration says. U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has said the Biden administration is “using every tool available” to get the country powered by clean energy by 2035.
The private sector is beginning to stir. Last week, Maryland-based X-Energy said it would build up to 12 reactors in Central Washington state, for Energy Northwest, a public utility. These wouldn’t be the behemoth-type reactors we’re used to seeing, but “advanced small, nuclear reactors.” X-Energy, which is privately held, has also been selected by Dow DOW, -1.40%
to construct a similar facility in Texas.
Other companies are also rolling out new technology to meet demand. Nuclear fusion — a breakthrough in that it creates more energy than the Oppenheimer-era fission model and at a lower cost — is likely to be the basis for reactors in the years ahead; the Washington, D.C.-based Fusion Industry Association thinks the first fusion power plant could come online by 2030. After seven rounds of funding, one fusion company, Seattle-based Helion Energy, is currently valued at around $3.6 billion, and appears headed for a public offering.
Here too, the Biden administration is getting involved. In May, the Department of Energy announced $46 million in funding for eight other fusion companies. “We have generated energy by drawing power from the sun above us. Fusion offers the potential to create the power of the sun right here on Earth,” says Granholm.
There are several opportunities here for long-term investors. You can pick your way through any number of publicly held companies, including more traditional utilities, or spread your bet across the industry through a handful of exchange-traded funds. The largest of these is the Global X Uranium Fund URA, +0.78%,
with about $1.6 billion in assets. It’s up about 9% year-to-date. The VanEck Uranium + Nuclear Energy Fund NLR, +0.41%
is up almost 10% and sports a 1.8% dividend yield. These are respectable year-t0-date returns, even though they lag the S&P 500 SPX, +0.32%
(up close to 19%) by a wide margin.
Deer sanctuary at Nijhum Dwip – the island of tranquility.
Opinion by Ramiz Uddin, Mohammad Saiful Hassan (dhaka, bangladesh)
Inter Press Service
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Jul 24 (IPS) – Blue tourism, widely referred to as Coastal or Maritime tourism, is a distinct idea from traditional tourism, which capitalizes on a country’s ocean, sea, or coastal region.
Coastal tourism is the largest market segment in the world, accounting for 5% of GDP and contributing 6-7% of total employment. Furthermore, coastal and maritime tourism will employ 1.5 million additional people worldwide by 2030.
Though Blue Tourism is not a new concept, but off late Bangladesh has been realizing its importance as it can help earning a lot of foreign exchange contribute to its GDP and accelerate the pace of achieving SDGs by 2030.
Blue Tourism: A Potential Blue Economy Avenue for Bangladesh
According to Asian Development Bank (ADB), coastal and maritime tourism has immense potential in the blue economy and could become one of the largest sources of tourism revenue in Bangladesh. Ocean contributed $6.2 billion in 2015 in total value addition to the Bangladesh’s economy which implies 3 percent of GDP (Business Standard 2020).
Among different sectors of the Blue Economy, Blue Tourism is the most potential sector. Figure: Why blue tourism shall be nurtured
Potentials of Blue Tourism in Bangladesh
Maritime area of 207K sq. km, with 580 km of coastline, 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone, and 12 nautical mile territorial zones creates unprecedent opportunities for Bangladesh to accelerate the growth of blue economy.
Icing on the top are the 75 large and small islands in the coastal and maritime zone of Bangladesh, which are regarded as touristy sites for their rich biodiversity. Coral reefs, seagrass reefs, sandy beaches, sandbars, marshes, flood basins, estuaries, peninsulas, mangroves etc. are a few examples of the aquatic life.
Currently these zones are endowed with 17 fish sanctuaries, 5 national parks, and 10 wildlife sanctuaries, all of which can spur the tourism sector’s expansion. As a result of the discovery of numerous new sea beaches, the sector continues to expand and diversify.
Policies and interventions introduced to nurture the potential
The government of Bangladesh along with the vibrant private sector have introduced various initiatives to develop and promote blue tourism in Bangladesh.
Since 2015, the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has been working to unleash the potentials of Blue-Economy. To ensure rapid implementation Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has highlighted major action points in the seventh five-year plan (7FYP) and eighth five -year plan (8FYP) of Bangladesh.
Additionally, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), GoB, had formed the “Blue Economy Cell” in 2017 to coordinate the running blue economy related projects across sectoral ministries and departments. The government of Bangladesh has also laid emphasis on the BLUE tourism in different development plans including Perspective Plan-2041, and Delta Plan-2100.
In order to exploit the tourism potential, Sea cruises between Bangladesh and India have already been launched in March 2019. To encourage foreign visitors to Cox’s Bazar’s largest sea beach, the Bangladesh Economic Zone Authority (BEZA) has been establishing three exclusive tourism parks there. These parks include Naf Tourism Park, Sabrang Tourism Park, and Sonadia Eco-Tourism Park.
Bangladesh Tourism Board has formulated a Tourism Master Plan for 25 years (2023-2047) for the country. Primarily a total of 255 tourist sites under 11 tourist clusters have been identified.
These tourist sites are potential for Eco-Tourism, Beach & Island Tourism, Pilgrimage/Spiritual Tourism, Archaeological & Historical Tourism, Riverine Tourism, Adventure and Sports Tourism, Rural Tourism, Ethno-tourism, MICE Tourism and Cruise Tourism in this coastal and maritime region.
The tourism master plan includes 200+ potential interventions overall. The Bangladesh Tourism Master Plan calls for the immediate development of 13 islands altogether in the coastal region.
In the last quarter of 2022, Bangladesh Tourism Board (BTB) in collaboration with UNDP Accelerator Lab has conducted research on Blue Tourism in Bangladesh, especially in the coastal regions. The core objectives of the joint research comprise identifying the coastal and maritime tourism resources, facilities, and tourist activities in Bangladesh, mapping tourist minds, and identifying the sustainability of Blue Tourism in Bangladesh.
However, with the technical assistance of UNDP Bangladesh Accelerator Lab, Bangladesh Tourism Board (BTB) has begun to work on the execution of Bangladesh’s Tourism Master Plan.
Dr. Ramiz Uddin is Head of Experimentation, UNDP Accelerator Lab, Bangladesh; Mohammad Saiful Hassan is (Deputy Secretary), Deputy Director (Research and Planning), Bangladesh Tourism Board, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism – Bangladesh.
I’ve read your previous responses to letters on tipping, and my thoughts are simple: Tipping is dependent on the service given. I won’t tip at a deli counter, but I will tip more in a diner. I see no reason to tip a deli counter person on a regular basis. The person who rings up my groceries isn’t allowed to accept tips, and they do a lot more than put a sandwich in a bag.
As far as restaurants go, 15% is the starting point and I will go up from that as warranted. I do tend to tip a high percentage in diners. The waitstaff there are generally fabulous, deal with lower price points and a varied clientele. I feel they also suffer from customer bias where some people seem to think it’s only a diner not a fancy restaurant.
“‘Helping others is not always through money. I volunteer my time with several charities and donate blood.’”
The job is the same whether my meal is $10 or $100. I try to pay in cash to ensure the waitstaff is promptly getting their tip, and to ensure that the money does indeed go to the wait staff. Are we expected to tip on a total that includes credit-card charges? What’s more, helping others is not always through money. I volunteer my time with several charities and donate blood.
What troubles me is that throughout the New York City metro area, tipping recommendations in restaurants are based on faulty calculations. My friends and I all agree that tips are supposed to be based on the price of the meal — that is the subtotal or pre-tax figure. Restaurants frequently encourage people to tip on the final amount.
Yes, wait staff in diners work as hard as any restaurant worker, and they deserve whatever your optimum tip — 15% or 20% — and as much as you would tip in a white-tablecloth restaurant. Yes, consumers should not be expected to tip in a deli — unless you have a good relationship with the staff, and you tip occasionally for goodwill. If you choose to “skip” the charity donation in a pharmacy, that’s OK too. Yes, donations and tips are increasingly being conflated, and that’s not always a good thing. We should be comfortable with the charity and 100% sure that the donation is going to the charity in question.
And your main point: Yes, tipping on the subtotal before tax and before credit-card charges is absolutely fair, although a lot of people — especially when calculating the tip among friends — tip on the after-tax total. Why? Perhaps we don’t want to be seen splitting hairs over the tax among friends and/or in front of a service worker who has given us exemplary service. Calculating tips is often done under pressure, and no one likes to be seen as a cheapskate. I almost always tip on the total amount, knowing that the sales tax is included, primarily because I figure that extra $1 or more is going to the person who served my table.
My colleague, MarketWatch news editor Nicole Pesce, put together a guide for how much you should tip everyone, and who you should NOT tip. She also cited three reasons why tipping has become such a note of contention, and why it appears we are tipping more: people tipped staff more during the pandemic (they were, after all, putting their health and lives at risk with their jobs); 40-year high inflation over the last 12 months has increased the cost of everything and, as such our tips rose in tandem with prices; and, finally, digital tipping appears to be ubiquitous, and people have been suffering from tipping fatigue.
“‘You’re not the only one: Americans are souring on tipping.’”
You’re not the only one with tipping fatigue, though: Americans are generally souring on tipping. A large majority (66%) of U.S. adults have a negative view about tipping, according to a poll released by the personal-finance site Bankrate last month. The bottom line: consumers feel they are being forced to compensate employees for low pay (41%) and they don’t appreciate all that digital guilt tipping (32%) and, as a result, they believe that tipping culture has gotten out of control (30%). Respondents also said they were confused about how much to tip (15%), but a small minority (a paltry 16%) said they would be willing to pay higher prices in lieu of tipping.
People appear to be less generous with their tipping amounts, and they also appear to be tipping less often. What’s perhaps most surprising from Bankrate’s research is that only 65% of diners actually tip when they eat out (that’s down from 73% last year). After restaurants, people are most likely to tip barbers/hairdressers (53% of those polled) and food-delivery workers (50%). From thereon, only a minority of people say they tip taxi or rideshare drivers (New York City cabs, which give tipping options upon payment, may be an outlier here), hotel housekeepers, baristas and food-delivery workers.
It’s important that we have this conversation about tipping because expectations and digital tipping methods are evolving all the time. On the one hand, people are facing higher prices and they are understandably feeling under pressure to tip. On the other hand, this conversation naturally overlaps with the working conditions and pay of service workers. Americans are tipping less than they did during the worst days of the pandemic. Service workers — along with medical personnel, bus and train drivers and first responders — were among the heroes of the pandemic. That is something I hope we never forget.
“The person who rings up my groceries isn’t allowed to accept tips, and they do a lot more than put a sandwich in a bag,” the letter writer says.
LONDON, Jul 21 (IPS) – Eswatini heads to the polls soon, with elections scheduled for September. But there’s nothing remotely democratic in prospect. The country remains ruled by King Mswati III, Africa’s last absolute monarch, who presides over Eswatini with an iron fist. Mswati dissolved parliament on 11 July, confident there’s little chance of people who disagree with him winning representation.
A long history of repression
There’ll be some notable absentees at the next election. At least two members of parliament (MPs) certainly won’t be running again: Mthandeni Dube and Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza were convicted of terrorism and murder in June. Their real crime was to do what Swazi MPs aren’t supposed to do: during protests for democracy that broke out in 2021, they dared call for political reform and a constitutional monarchy.
Dube and Mabuza could face up to 20 years in jail. In detention they were beaten and denied access to medical and legal help. They were found guilty by judges appointed and controlled by the king. In Eswatini, the judiciary is regularly used to harass and criminalise those who stand up to Mswati’s power: people such as trade union leader Sticks Nkambule, subject to contempt of court charges for his role in organising a stay-at-home strike demanding the release of Dube and Mabuza. Other activists face terrorism charges.
But not every crime is so zealously prosecuted. In January, human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko was shot dead by unidentified assailants. Maseko was chair of the Multi-Stakeholder Forum, a network that brings together civil society groups, political parties, businesses and others to urge a peaceful transition to democracy. He’d previously spent 14 months in jail for criticising Eswatini’s lack of judicial independence. He was also Dube and Mabuza’s lawyer. There’s been little evident investigation of his killing.
There’s plenty more blood on the king’s hands. The 2021 democracy protests were initially triggered by the killing of law student Thabani Nkomonye. At least 46 people are estimated to have been killed in the ensuing protests. Security forces reportedly fired indiscriminately at protesters; leaked footage revealed that the king ordered them to shoot to kill.
In some areas security forces went house to house, dragging young people out for beatings. Hospitals were overwhelmed with the injured. People who survived shootings weren’t allowed to keep the bullets extracted from them, since this would have constituted evidence. Some bodies were reportedly burned to try to conceal the state’s crimes. When a second wave of protest arose in September 2021, led by schoolchildren, Mswati sent the army into schools, and then closed schools and imposed a nationwide protest ban. Hundreds of protesters and opposition supporters were jailed. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was enforced with the army on the streets and an internet shutdown imposed.
To this day, no one has been held accountable for the killings. There’s also been zero movement towards reform.
Farce of an election forthcoming
Following the intervention of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the king agreed to hold a national dialogue. But two years on, that hasn’t happened. Instead he held a Sibaya – a traditional gathering in which he was the only person allowed to speak.
Now the election is going ahead without any constructive dialogue or reform. The chances of reform-minded potential MPs winning significant representation are slimmer than ever. To do so, they’d have to navigate a two-round process that is exclusionary by design, with candidates first needing to win approval at the chiefdom level. No party affiliations are allowed.
To further rein in those elected, Mswati directly appoints most of the upper house and some of the lower house. And just to make sure, he picks the prime minister and cabinet, can veto legislation and remains constitutionally above the law.
It’s a system that serves merely to fulfil a kingly fantasy of consultation and pretend to the outside world that democracy exists in Eswatini. Official results from the last two elections were never published, but it’s little wonder than turnout in this electoral farce has reportedly been low.
With the king unwilling to concede even the smallest demands, evidence suggests that repression is further intensifying ahead of voting. The king has imported South African mercenaries – described as ‘security experts’ – to help enforce his reign of terror. There are reports of a hit list of potential assassinations. Lawyers who might defend the rights of criminalised activists and protesters report coming under increasing threat.
Time for international pressure
People have been killed, jailed and forced into exile, but desire for change hasn’t gone away. After all, people in Eswatini aren’t asking for much. They want a competitive vote where they can choose politicians who serve them rather than the king, and they want a constitutional monarchy where the king has limited rather than absolute powers. If they got that, they might even get an economy that works in the public interest, rather than as a vast mechanism designed to funnel wealth to the royal family while everyone else stays poor.
The pretence of an election shouldn’t fool the outside world. Civil society keeps calling on African regional bodies not to let them down. In May the Multi-Stakeholder Forum urged the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to back an eight-point plan to respect human rights and enable dialogue. The demands were presented by Tanele Maseko, Thulani Maseko’s widow.
The full text of the MSF statement to the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) on 1 May, 2023 in Banjul, the Gambia pic.twitter.com/V790L3ELRn
— Swaziland Multi-Stakeholder Forum (@crisis_forum) May 17, 2023
Eswatini’s activists also expect more of SADC, and of the government of South Africa, the country where so many of them now live in exile. Governments and organisations that claim to stand for democracy and human rights need to exert some pressure for genuine dialogue leading to a transition to democratic rule. They shouldn’t keep letting the king get away with murder.
Late on Wednesday, Tesla Inc. TSLA, -1.10%
reported that quarterly sales were up 47% from a year earlier. But the stock tumbled 10% on Thursday.
Tesla’s shares are still up 113% this year. The company is among a group of 13 in the S&P 500 that stand out with high growth expectations for sales, earnings and free cash flow through 2025.
But less than half of analysts polled by FactSet rate Tesla a buy. Emily Bary explains what they are worried about.
Chipotle Mexican Grill is among 14 stocks named by Michael Brush for consideration by investors looking to ride along with long-term improvement of U.S. labor productivity.
AP
The S&P 500 SPX, +0.03%
has returned 19% this year, following its 18% decline in 2022. On the same basis, with dividends reinvested, the benchmark index is still down 2% since the end of 2021.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.01%
is up 6% this year. The venerable index has trailed the S&P 500, but its closing level of 35,255.18 on Thursday was only 4% shy of its record close a 36,799.65 on Jan. 4, 2022. Joseph Adinolfi explains Dow Theory, which according to technical analysts is sending a strong bullish signal for the stock market.
Even if you have resisted the idea of a Roth IRA, you may soon be forced to have one
This year if you are age 50 or older and are already maxing-out your contribution to a 401(K), 403(B) or other qualified employer-sponsored tax-deferred retirement plan at $22,500, you can make an additional “catch up” tax deductible contribution of $7,500 for a total of $30,000. But starting in 2024, the catch up contribution will no longer be tax deductible if you earn at least $145,000 a year. You can still make the contribution with after-tax money into a Roth 401(K) account that your plan administrator may already have set up for you.
Shares of Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc. trade only slightly higher than the S&P 500 on a forward price-to-earnings bases, while Nvidia Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc. trade much higher.
FactSet
Leslie Albrecht looks at Meta Platforms Inc. META, -2.73%,
which is Facebook’s holding company and has a hit on its hands with the new Threads social-media platform, and Google holding company Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, +0.69%,
to consider which stock is a better buy.
In The Ratings Game column, MarketWatch reporters track analysts’ thoughts about various stocks. Here’s a sampling of this week’s coverage:
You don’t know every bad factor causing air travel to be nothing but harassment
Getting there is half the fun.
Getty Images
The U.S. flying scene — from shortages of equipment and labor (and runways) to ill-staffed air-traffic control towers — is a well-known nightmare for U.S. travelers. But there is more to the story. Jeremy Binckes looks into other factors that may surprise you and cause great inconvenience this summer.
The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates again next week
The Federal Open Market Committee will meet next Tuesday and Wednesday, to be immediately followed by a policy announcement. Economists expect the central to raise the federal-funds rate by another quarter point. The question is whether or not this will end the Fed’s inflation-fighting rate cycle.
How much would you pay for 100% downside protection in the stock market?
MarketWatch illustration/iStockphoto
Over the past 30 years, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY,
has returned 1,650%, for an average annual return of 10%, with dividends reinvested, according to FactSet. But it hasn’t been a smooth ride. The ETF, which tracks the benchmark S&P 500, fell 18% last year and 37% during 2008, for example. And there have been even larger declines if the analysis isn’t confined to calendar years.
But can you ride through market declines? Many studies have shown that most investors who try to time the market sell after a decline has started and buy back in well after a recovery is under way, which means their long-term performance can suffer significantly.
In this week’s ETF Wrap column (and emailed newsletter), Isabel Wang describes a new buffered fund that can give you 100% downside protection over a two-year period, in return for a cap on your potential gains in the stock market. Here’s the price you would pay for the protection.
The World Cup games have started
Hannah Wilkinson scored the home team’s first goal against Norway during the first World Cup game in Auckland, New Zealand, on July 20.
Getty Images
The Women’s World Cup began Thursday with an upset victory by New Zealand over Norway.
James Rogers reports on what is expected to be a much easier environment for FIFA and corporate sponsors than that of last year’s Men’s World Cup in Qatar.
U.S. Soccer Federation President Cindy Parlow Cone participated in MarketWatch’s Best New Ideas in Money podcast and spoke about the long-term effort to achieve equal treatment for women soccer players.
More coverage of the World Cup:
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