#latest government jobs 2017

[mariacallous]

Eric Adams wanted to see the world, to see it in style. But he wasn’t a rich man, just a former cop and rising politician in a largely ceremonial job, Brooklyn Borough President. Luckily for him, there were a number of benefactors who federal prosecutors say were ready to help him travel in a manner benefitting the position he was angling for: mayor of New York City.

According to a sprawling, 57-page indictment unsealed on Thursday, there was the chairman of a Turkish university; a promoter “whose business includes organizing events to introduce Turkish corporations and businesspeople to politicians, celebrities, and others whose influence may benefit the corporations”; and a senior official in the Turkish government, who, prosecutors say, “later steered illegal contributions and improper gifts to Adams to gain influence with and, eventually, to obtain corrupt official action from Adams.” 

Adams in the summer of 2017 went with his son and a staffer to Nice, Istanbul, Sri Lanka, and Beijing, flying business class the whole way. In October, he went again to Istanbul and Beijing, and then on to Nepal. Those tickets were, all told, worth $51,000. But he got it all for free. 

The relationship deepened from there, as Adams began to run for mayor in earnest. The Turks allegedly funneled money to his campaign through false entities, or “straw donors.” Accepting such donations is against the law — and Adams allegedly received public matching funds based on these contributions. Adams allegedly returned the favor, in part by pressuring the fire department to allow the opening of a $300 million, 36-story glass tower to house the Turkish consulate, just off of First Avenue and 45th Street, without an inspection and “in time for a high-profile visit by Turkey‘s president” — a diplomatic coup for a man who’s functionally a dictator.

Adams has vigorously denied all of the charges. And at least one Adams ally I spoke with in the immediate aftermath breathed a quarter-sigh of relief — this person was expecting even more, and more serious, charges. “It’s obviously not great but this is weaker than I thought it would be,” the source tells me.

But that exhale assumes that the federal charges against Adams begin and end in this document. They almost certainly do not, with at least four more federal probes reportedly targeting his inner circle and FBI agents searching the mayor’s residence shortly before the indictment was announced. It also assumes that the Turks were the only government to allegedly turn Adams into an unregistered foreign agent. That, too, could prove to be a dangerous supposition — especially given the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn’s pursuit of Chinese influence in New York. 

In the last four years, that federal prosecutor’s office alone has charged a dozen separate criminal cases of covert Chinese government interference in U.S. politics, business, and civil society. An aide to New York’s governor was indicted as a foreign agent on Sept. 3. An ex-corrections officer got 20 months for harassing an artist who lampooned Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Two more men were arrested for operating a secret Chinese police station out of the Manhattan headquarters of a group for expats from Fujian province. 

The examples spiral out from there.In July, a federal jury in Manhattan convicted Robert Menendez, a Democratic U.S. senator from New Jersey, of taking bribes and acting as Egypt’s agent. In August, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged a hitman with trying to assassinate Donald Trump, allegedly on Iran’s orders. In September, prosecutors in Manhattan revealed an alleged Russian plot to funnel $10 million to MAGA influencers. This is a partial list. A snippet of a list, really. And all of these developments happened in just the last few months, just in and around this one metro area, where a wide array of foreign actors are looking to turn New York into something like Spy City.  

The 20 experts, officials, and activists I spoke to couldn’t agree on whether these cases represent a major escalation in this covert activity, an increase in Washington’s willingness to combat it, or both. But they all agreed that such efforts are widespread and being directed by countries across the globe. And while it might be tempting to speculate about what this says about the various foreign policy strategies in foreign capitals, the clear takeaway is that malicious actors around the world see America as pliable, and influence as something that can be bought on the cheap. In other words, the most disturbing part about these covert foreign pressure campaigns is what it says about our politics, our society. About us.

ONE OF THE MORE disturbing foreign influence cases to recently come to light begins 35 years ago, in Beijing. Yan Xiong was a student activist there, jailed for being part of the big Tiananmen Square protests. When he got out, he made his way to America, enlisted in the U.S. Army, and eventually served two tours as a chaplain in Iraq. By 2021, Yan was running for Congress in lower Manhattan. He could tell that something was off. He’d show up to candidate forums, and then wouldn’t be allowed to speak. He’d try to raise money, no dice. There was an old man who wouldn’t stop taking pictures of Yan’s campaign. Yan would go out to his driveway late at night and find a car there, headlights blazing. It was unnerving, but Yan was used to looking over his shoulder.

Nevertheless, Yan was shocked when, in March of 2022, federal prosecutors revealed that he was being targeted by the Chinese government. The goal: to surveil and sabotage the chaplain’s long-shot campaign. “Go deep and dig up something. Right? For example, past incidents of tax evasion… if he used prostitutes in the past… if he had a mistress,” a member of China’s Ministry of State Security allegedly told a private investigator here in the U.S. If the private investigator couldn’t come up with — or make up — any dirt, the P.I. was encouraged to use other means to take Yan out of the race: “In the end, violence would be fine too.” 

In the end, Yan’s campaign netted him only 750 votes — not great, but 50 percent more than former Mayor Bill De Blasio received. The P.I. hired by the Chinese government never found any dirt on Yan, or physically attacked him. But the attempt to ratfuck Yan’s campaign continues to leave a wound. Yan’s getting ready to move for the fifth time in two years — in part “for safety, for psychology.” In August, prosecutors unveiled another layer to the alleged plot against him. The old man who’d been taking all those pictures? He was a former Tiananmen Square veteran, too — one who was now accused of working as an unregistered agent for Beijing. To Yan, he’s another “victim” of a regime that’s all-too-willing to extend its reach here. “It’s a tragedy, that’s my opinion,” Yan tells me.

And Yan’s case isn’t the only one in which there seem to be shadowy figures just out of frame. Shujun Wang, another longtime Chinese dissident, was convicted in late August of working as Beijing’s spy. The other day, I called his lawyer to ask about a member of the defense team, a man listed in court documents as a paralegal, who was, in fact, a Florida realtor, recently acquitted of rape. What was he doing there? Who was he? “He is nobody,” the lawyer answered.  

These influence campaigns by foreign governments, prosecutors allege, reach all the way down to the lowest levels of state and local government. Take Linda Sun, who started in 2012 as one of the more junior aides out of 200 or so in Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office. The former beauty pageant contestant and Barnard grad, who had come to New York from Nanjing when she was a kid, put in the work as a liaison to the borough of Queens and the state’s Asian American community. She’d help connect constituents to government services, make appearances at Lunar New Year events, write up proclamations, and liaise with foreign consulates. Over the years, she gained leverage. Cuomo’s communications shop — described by one former colleague as “95 percent Caucasian” — relied on Sun to tell them how a state proclamation or press release might resonate in Asian communities.

“She did her job. She went home. Didn’t cause any trouble, never caused any drama. But in hindsight, [there was] a lot of trust in that particular position. Because when you ask her opinion about how something plays, we were asking how it plays in, you know, [the Chinese American neighborhoods of] Sunset Park and Flushing. Not how it played in Beijing,” that source tells me.

By 2015, Sun had a willing ear in Kathy Hochul, the new Lieutenant Governor, who was iced out of Cuomo’s inner circle — and eager to build up her own political constituency. Hochul made sure to attend Chinese American community celebrations and events to promote trade with Beijing. (A Hochul aide notes that she interfaced with all kinds of foreign officials, including a half-dozen such meetings just with the Canadians in 2016.) Sun made sure there were all sorts of meetings Hochul wouldn’t take, wouldn’t even know were offered. For example, prosecutors allege, when officials from the rival government of Taiwan tried to get together with Hochul in D.C. in mid-2016, Sun scheduled talks with Beijing’s representatives instead — and then bragged to the Chinese consulate about what she had done. Hochul began to be quoted favorably and often by Beijing’s official state news agency. Sun started to receive gifts from Chinese officials, prosecutors say: tickets to Carnegie Hall, then a wire transfer for $47,895 for travel expenses. 

As Sun’s responsibilities increased, her profile grew. She worked with legislators when Korean American nail salons were revealed to be serially underpaying their workers. She helped steer money to Asian American groups as threats to them rose during the pandemic.

By 2021, Hochul was governor. Sun had a bigger title, deputy chief of staff, and was displaying sharper elbows. “She felt very emboldened with making sure that there was a focus [on] protecting mainland China’s agendas,” State Assemblyman Ron Kim, who previously held Sun’s community liaison job, recalls. “That was universally understood, because when myself and other[s] carried certain resolutions to celebrate U.S.-Taiwan relations, I got calls from the governor’s office letting me know that the Chinese consulate is very upset with you, and they would prefer if I don’t do such resolutions again.” (Sun has pleaded not guilty to charges she acted as an agent of the Chinese government, and her attorneys declined to comment for this story.) 

This might seem arcane and sort of small-ball. Who cares if some local pol doesn’t issue a Taiwan proclamation? But it’s part of a strategy, says Bethany Allen, author of Beijing Rules, echoing the sentiments of several U.S. officials. “If this is done extensively, consistently, quietly across many states, many state capitals, many state governments, local governments,” Allen tells me, “it can shape the debate. Have a strong downward pressure on the things that China wants to quiet.” 

And it’s a strategy that Beijing is willing to pursue over the long haul — to influence people at the lowest levels of local government, and let those folks rise over time. Back when she was a reporter, Allen broke the news of a suspected Chinese spy in California who cultivated relationships from the political to the romantic with city councilmen, small-town mayors, and at least one Congressman. The spy’s true motivations weren’t uncovered until that Congressman, Rep. Eric Swalwell, was on the verge of joining the House Intelligence Committee and gaining access to some of the nation’s better-protected national secrets. (Swalwell denied any romantic relationship, and a House ethics panel decided to take no action against him after a two-year investigation.)  

Linda Sun’s case never reached that kind of crisis point. But her value to Chinese officials was clear. The wire transfers were in the millions by 2021. The Chinese Consul General in New York — a sharp, genial diplomat named Huang Ping — sent Nanjing-style salted ducks to Sun’s parents, a half-dozen at a time. According to one source, she started showing up with a fresh tan and a new, high-end handbag to every community event. “People were definitely talking about how she went from rags to riches overnight,” Kim tells me. “Her parents lived in a one-bedroom apartment… She was trying to get a mortgage to buy a condo in Flushing, and she could barely get that. But all of a sudden, now she’s living in a mansion.” And in a sweet vacation home, too. Around the same time Sun and her husband bought a $3.6 million home in Manhasset, New York, they also, according to prosecutors, purchased “an ocean-view condominium on the 47th floor of a high rise building in Honolulu, Hawaii, currently valued at approximately $2.1 million.”

SUN AND ADAMS ARE the first local officials to be charged with acting as agents of a foreign power. They probably won’t be the last, or even the last in New York. (“What you saw with the governor in New York, that’s going to be scratching an itch that tickles in a lot of different places,” Bill Evanina, who spent seven years as the federal government’s top counterintelligence official, tells me.) The place has long attracted spies and clandestine power brokers, and not just because of the UN, or Wall Street, or all the corporate headquarters. America’s best city is, not coincidentally, also its most diverse; more than three million of the eight million-plus people living here are foreign-born. Those diasporas are often of intense interest to the countries from which they spring, especially if the countries in question are ruled by authoritarians. The revolutionary movements that took down the Czar, the Chinese Emperor, and the Shah were all incubated overseas. 

These diasporas also can wield outsized power in local politics, too. New York’s election laws are so labyrinthine and complex, with elections held on off-years and on strange dates, that they’re practically designed to keep people from voting. (Ron Kim has 115,000 people living in his district in Queens, for example; fewer than 3,200 of them voted in his contested primary race, which is the only race that matters in a one-party town.) So if any one group gets behind a single candidate, or gins up turnout, or dumps in a lot of money, it can swing an election. Kim faced off against a primary opponent backed by a well-known local community leader who is openly supportive of the Chinese Communist Party. They each poured more than $600,000 into that tiny-turnout primary race. “I felt this was a clear effort to get a political seat for a person who is loyal to their agenda,” Kim says. “This isn’t about lawmaking in [the state capital of] Albany, but it’s about being the power broker of Flushing that will give them credibility and access.”

This is all happening in a place where the politics are — there’s no other way to put this — corrupt as fuck. The five federal investigations reportedly swirling around Adams and his closest associates involve everyone from the police commissioner to the schools chancellor to his top fundraisers to a pair of deputy mayors. Adams’ immediate predecessor, de Blasio, dodged indictment for violating campaign finance laws, but not by much. After leaving office, former mayor Rudy Giuliani took money from a North Korean gangster and then worked with a man he admitted was likely a Russian spy. Long Island’s George Santos was expelled from Congress after less than a year; he recently pleaded guilty to identity theft and wire fraud. One of Santos’ bigger Republican critics on the Island, Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, was just exposed for giving Congressional jobs to his lover and his fiancée’s daughter. 

You get the idea: plenty of politicians with their hands out; elections practically designed to be swayed by small groups; those small groups susceptible to foreign infiltration and pressure, because they’ve all got family back home. “New York would be at the top of the list in terms of foreign governments, foreign regimes wanting to target,” says Casey Michel, author of the newly published Foreign Agents. “Especially New York City. I don’t think it’s any surprise that the major investigation into a municipal authority as a target of potential foreign influence is Adams.”

So let’s talk about the mayor. Adams has been ducking corruption allegations — and playing diaspora politics — for more than 15 years. According to the New York Times, a grand jury in July issued subpoenas related to Adams’ ties to six different countries: China, Qatar, South Korea, Israel, Uzbekistan, and, of course, Turkey. In his role as Brooklyn Borough President, Adams attended almost 80 events connected with Turkey, and at least 50 more celebrating China. Some of those events actually upset his Turkish government contacts, according to the indictment. In 2016, a Turkish official told Adams that a community center he used to visit “was affiliated with a Turkish political movement that was hostile to Turkey’s government… If Adams wished to continue receiving support from the Turkish government, Adams could no longer associate with the community center. Adams acquiesced.”

Adams also met multiple times with Huang Ping, the Chinese Consul General who prosecutors later identified as Linda Sun’s handler. And the politicking seemingly continued overseas. Adams took 13 separate trips to Turkey and China, which is a lot of travel to those two specific nations, considering borough presidents don’t really have foreign policy roles. “It’s totally appropriate,” he said after the first of the trips to China, in 2014. “I’m not going to be a MetroCard borough president — I’m going to be a passport borough president.”

City Hall won’t say what all of the trips were for. (They didn’t respond to requests to comment for this story.) The alleged purpose of the Turkey trips, at least, is now less murky after the indictment’s release.When it comes to the others, here’s what we can say for sure: We know that one of Adams’ China travel partners, his longtime Asian community liaison Winnie Greco, had her former campaign office and several of her homes raided by the FBI. We know that Greco and another Adams crony met separately in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province, with the man later indicted for operating that secret Chinese police station out of a Fujianese expat society in Manhattan. We know that Adams and Greco appeared onstage at a gala for that charity — the American Changle Association, named for a famed neighborhood in Fuzhou — shortly before it was exposed as a secret police front bythe New York Post. We know Adams was with Association bigwig Lu Jianwang days before Lu was arrested in the secret police affair. We know, thanks to local news outlet The City, that 121 workers at the New World Mall in Queens, the site of Greco’s 2021 campaign office, made donations to Adams of precisely $249 each, one buck below the limit for eight-times public matching funds. Several donors said they were reimbursed in cash, or had no idea they had been listed as contributors at all. This has all the hallmarks of illegal straw donations, as Adams’ team surely knows.One Chinese billionaire who gave money to Adams (and hosted his 60th birthday party) recently pleaded guilty to such charges. 

MAYBE ALL OF THESE connections were on the up-and-up. Maybe Adams’ trips to China and extremely odd donations from his campaign office in Flushing were no more nefarious than the 70-plus flag-raising ceremonies for various countries he’s attended in his two-and-a-half years as mayor. Maybe it’s an accident of scheduling that Huang Ping, the Chinese Consul General, asked him to blow off a banquet with the Taiwanese president and Adams wound up doing just that. Adams may have rubbed elbows with people who were later indicted as foreign agents in groups like the American Changle Association, where voters gather for an old-country meal or speak in their parents’ dialect. There’s hardly an elected official in New York who didn’t make such a visit, or get his picture taken at some point with Huang. Of course they did. Huang was a gregarious, effective, charming diplomat. He may be accused of secretly handling alleged agents like Linda Sun, but chatting up local politicians was most definitely Huang’s job.  

You don’t have to be some kind of simp for Beijing to find this kind of criminalization of foreign influence a little hypocritical, given all the governments the U.S. helped overthrow in the past century. You’re not necessarily an abolish-the-police type if you think the feds have gone overboard in their hunt for Chinese agents. “We’re not China. We’re supposedly a free country, and the government should take more care in prosecuting and, in turn, persecuting people,” John Liu, a state senator from Queens, tells me. This is personal for him. While he was gearing up to run for mayor more than a decade ago, the FBI ran a sting on him and his donors, part of a straw-donor probe he says was oh-so-subtly named “Operation Red Money.” They did find some straw donors, and a top aide did go to jail. But Liu himself was only fined $26,000 — proof, he says, that the whole investigation was overheated. Nor is it a one-off. Liu points to cases like Baimadajie Angwang, the cop accused of spying for China, only to have the charges dropped without explanation. By that time, the NYPD had fired him. “You know what? It wouldn’t be so bad if the government pursued these cases, made them as visible as they intentionally make them, and actually had a pretty good record of success,” Liu says. “It bothers me that there’s no accountability of any kind. You know, the government does this, and it doesn’t matter how many lives are ruined [or] the impact on the wider community.” 

There’s no question there’s been overreach, including horror stories of Chinese Americans interrogated by the FBI, seemingly for no reason at all. “We should absolutely oppose any effort by any foreign government to undermine our American society, our way of life, our democracy,” says Rep. Grace Meng, who hired Linda Sun when she was in the State Assembly and now represents a large part of Queens in the U.S. Congress. But “there’s a lot of fear right now in the Asian American community,” she adds. “Every day, young, professional Asian Americans are really scared that these harmful stereotypes are being fueled… [by] questions that are asked only of us.”

As overzealous as some prosecutors may have been, though, and as ugly our recent turn toward anti-China and anti-immigrant politics, there are too many of these foreign influence cases, tied to so many different outside actors, to brush off. A former Republican Congressman is under indictment for covertly working for Venezuela’s dictator. A major Trump fundraiser pleaded guilty to doing the same on behalf of the Chinese and Malaysian government officials, in a case so weird and sprawling, a member of the Fugees wound up with a foreign agent conviction as part of it. Things are so bad, the guy that’s supposed to be leading the investigations into these cases in New York — the head of the state’s FBI counterintelligence division — was himself sentenced earlier this year to federal prison for doing the bidding of a sanctioned Russian oligarch. The MAGA crowd can whine all they want about the #resistance obsession with “Russia, Russia, Russia.” Folks on the political left can roll their eyes at what feels like a Trumpy obsession with Chinese influence, or another red scare. It takes a kind of willful blindness not to see a pattern here. Liu, for one, called on Adams to resign after prosecutors unveiled their indictment which showed just how deep the mayor’s ties to Turkey went.

“This isn’t a Republican problem or a Democratic problem — it’s completely bipartisan,“ Michel tells me. “And as we’re now seeing, it’s not just one level of government these regimes are targeting. It’s everyone.”

For half a century, the American government hardly bothered to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires influence-peddlers to disclose their overseas clients, at least. That changed after the 2016 election, when Trump recruited the O.G. of scummy foreign lobbying, Paul Manafort, to run his campaign and publicly begged for a dictator’s help to win. The Department of Justice went on to prosecute Manafort and so many others — from the Russian troll farm to the white-shoe law firm Skadden, Arps — for breaking that law. Brandon van Grack, who oversaw many of those prosecutions as head of the Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration Act unit, says the apparent surge in cases we’re seeing, eight years later, is a result of that 2016 wake-up call. He credits “greater resources and tools to identify and disrupt those influence operations than an increase in the operations themselves,” adding, “Foreign influence is not novel.”

It’s not exactly dying down, either. A few years ago, you might have thought that prosecuting folks like Manafort would at least serve as a warning shot. The sheer range of regimes trying to influence the 2024 election paints a different picture, and I don’t just mean the fact that Manafort is a free man and doing Fox News hits from the Republican convention. “I would say that a couple things are true in this specific situation. Yes, there are more investigations, because there are allowed to be. And I think our adversaries are more brazen than they have ever been,” Evanina, the former counterintelligence chief, tells me. 

There’s a good argument that the number of prosecutions isn’t even the right metric to gauge foreign influence. Registering as an overseas lobbyist — dodging a FARA charge — that’s the easy part. More than 1,000 foreign principals have done so since 2016, spending more than $5.5 billion to whisper in lawmakers’ ears. At least 90 former members of Congress have registered since 2000 to push another government’s agenda. Scores of U.S. generals and admirals have taken jobs with foreign governments in the last decade, with Saudi Arabia alone hiring 15 retired flag officers. Biden talked in 2020 about banning former officials from lobbying for foreign powers. It was just talk.  

The Supreme Court in recent years has radically raised the bar on bribery cases, and functionally removed any restrictions on campaign spending. That’s allowed Americans closely aligned with foreign governments to make enormous investments in shaping U.S. policy. The best known of these are the lobbyists pushing the agenda of Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who gave over a million dollars to the now-convicted Sen. Menendez, even after he was indicted, and spent millions more on successful primary campaigns to knock out two of Israel’s few critics in Congress. None of this violates any laws. But maybe that’s beside the point. The real foreign influence scandal, Michel tells me, is how much of it is “perfectly legal.” 

If you’re mad at outside actors for exploiting America’s system, don’t be. The United States is still the world’s biggest power; of course every other nation is going to try to pull us in their direction. Try directing your anger a little closer to home. All of these politicians on the take, we voted for them. The bullshit China or Iran pumps out on TikTok? It’s downright factual compared to the nonsense we Americans push one another. And if you think a guy like Eric Adams is an outlier with his, shall we say, open-minded approach to campaign finance and outside influences, allow me to introduce you to the Republican nominee for president and his inner circle. The Congress we elected has bottled up nearly every attempt to close these foreign-funding loopholes. The campaigns we supported went along with the Supreme Court’s decision to make elections a feeding frenzy. This is a choice. Collectively, we made it.

IN THE HOURS AFTER Linda Sun and her husband were charged as Chinese agents on Sept. 3, Gov. Hochul urged the U.S. government to expel Sun’s alleged handler, Consul General Huang Ping, and a State Department spokesperson claimed that Huang had “rotated out of the position.” Yet on the night of Sept. 5, at Manhattan’s storied Plaza Hotel, Huang Ping appeared onstage at the China Institute’s $2,500-per-ticket Blue Cloud gala, looking rather dapper in a well-tailored tuxedo. Pictures were posted to the consulate’s website two days later. “Consul General Huang Ping is performing his duties as normal,” read a statement sent out to reporters.

A few hours after he was indicted, Huang’s longtime interlocutor Eric Adams promised to do much the same. “My attorneys will take care of the case, so I can take care of this city,” he said. “My day to day will not change.” 

[magnoliamyrrh]

By Hawon Jung

After trying for over a year to persuade more South Korean women to have babies, Chung Hyun-back says one reason stands out for her failure: “Our patriarchal culture.” Ms. Chung, who was tasked by the previous government with reversing the country’s plummeting birthrate, knows firsthand how tough it is to be a woman in South Korea. She chose her career over nuptials and children. Like her, millions of young women have been collectively spurning motherhood in a so-called birth strike.

A 2022 survey found that more women than men — 65 percent versus 48 percent — don’t want children. They’re doubling down by avoiding matrimony (and its conventional pressures) altogether. The other term in South Korea for birth strike is “marriage strike.”

The trend is killing South Korea. For three years in a row, the country has recorded the lowest fertility rate in the world, with women of reproductive age having fewer than one child on average. It reached the “dead cross,” when deaths outnumbered births, in 2020, nearly a decade earlier than expected.

Chung Hyun-back, who was South Korea’s gender equality minister in 2017-18, tried unsuccessfully to raise the country’s plunging fertility rate. Among the obstacles she says are to blame is the country’s “patriatchal culture."

Now, about half of the country’s 228 cities, counties and districts risk losing so many residents they might vanish. Day care centers and kindergartens are being converted into nursing homes. Ob-Gyn clinics are closing, and funeral parlors are opening. At Seoksan Elementary School, in rural Gunwi County, the student body has shrunk from 700 pupils to four. When last I visited, the children couldn’t even form a soccer team.

Young Koreans have well-documented  reasons not to start a family, including the staggering costs of raising children, unaffordable homes, lousy job prospects and soul-crushing work hours. But women in particular are fed up with this traditionalist society’s impossible expectations of mothers. So they’re quitting.

President Yoon Suk-yeol, elected last year, has suggested feminism is to blame for blocking “healthy relationships” between men and women. But he’s got it backward — gender equality is the solution to falling birthrates. Many of the Korean women shunning dating, marriage and childbirth are sick of pervasive sexism and furious about a culture of violent chauvinism. Their refusal to be “baby-making machines,” according to protest banners I’ve seen, is retaliation. “The birth strike is women’s revenge on a society that puts impossible burdens on us and doesn’t respect us,” says Jiny Kim, 30, a Seoul office worker who’s intent on remaining childless.

Making life fairer and safer for women would work wonders toward reducing the country’s existential threat. Yet this feminist dream seems increasingly far-fetched, as Mr. Yoon’s conservative government champions regressive policies that only magnify the problem.

South Korea’s demographic crisis was once inconceivable: As late as the 1960s, women had six children on average. But the state, pursuing economic development, carried out an aggressive population control campaign. In about 20 years, women were having fewer than the 2.1 children needed for replenishment, a number that’s only continued to drop. The latest available data from South Korea’s statistics agency put the fertility rate at 0.81 for 2021; by the third quarter of 2022 it was 0.79.

Recent governments have indeed been alarmed by a rate that’s seemingly approaching zero. Over 16 years, 280 trillion won ($210 billion) has been poured into programs encouraging procreation, such as a monthly allowance for parents of newborns.

Many women still say nope. No wonder. There’s little escaping suffocating gender norms, whether in pregnancy guidelines to arrange clean undergarments for your husband before labor, or the dayslong kitchen drudgework for holidays like the Chuseok harvest festival. Married women are saddled with the lion’s share of chores and child care, squeezing new mothers so much that many give up professional ambitions. Even in dual-income households, wives daily spend more than three hours on these tasks versus their husband’s 54 minutes.

Discrimination against working mothers by employers is also absurdly common. In one notorious case, the country’s top baby formula maker was accused of pressuring female employees to quit after getting pregnant.

And gender-based violence is “shockingly widespread,” according to Human Rights Watch. In 2021, a woman was murdered or targeted for murder every 1.4 days or less, according to the Korea Women’s Hotline. Women have dubbed the act of ending a relationship without getting a vicious reaction a “safe breakup.”

But women haven’t passively accepted the toxic masculinity. They’ve organized raucously, from Asia’s most successful #MeToo movement to groups like “4B,” which translates to the “Four nos: no dating, no sex, no marriage and no child-rearing.” The country’s feminist movements have won the decriminalization of abortion and harsher penalties for an epidemic of spycam-porn crimes.

Many young Korean men, however, have declared themselves victims of women’s activism. President Yoon rose to power last year by leveraging this resentment. He echoed the dog whistle of men’s rights advocates, declaring that structural sexism no longer exists in South Korea and vowing tougher punishment for false reports of sexual assault.

Mr. Yoon’s government is removing the term “gender equality” from school textbooks and has canceled funding for programs to fight everyday sexism. “If you find gender equality and feminism so important, you can do it with your own money and time,” said one lawmaker in his party.

The government is also working to dismantle its own headquarters for women’s empowerment — the gender equality ministry. Established in 2001, it’s been transformative in normalizing parental leave for fathers and helping more women achieve workplace seniority.

Comments by the gender equality minister under the Yoon administration illustrate its abandonment of women. In September, Kim Hyun-sook rejected the idea that misogyny was at play when a Seoul Metro worker stabbed a female colleague to death in a subway bathroom after stalking her for years. Ms. Kim also initially declared that the rape and killing of a college student on campus last June was not violence against women and shouldn’t be used to fan “gender conflict.”

So far, none of the measures implemented by successive governments have flipped the trends in marriage and childbearing. Worse yet, the current government seems to be actively undermining efforts that gave women hope. “This is a historical regression,” says Ms. Chung, who was the gender equality minister from 2017 to 2018. Society can’t end the birth strike without acknowledging women’s grievances, she says.

Motivating Korean women to reconsider marriage and children involves infusing every aspect of their lives with agency and equality. A feminist approach would remove obstacles to motherhood simply by enforcing existing laws against workplace discrimination. It would destigmatize births outside of marriage and make domestic duties everyone’s responsibility. It would condemn gender violence as reprehensible. A feminist approach would admit there’s a systemic problem.

It’s clear that countries with a disproportionate division of child care or lacking national paid parental leave, like Japan and the United States, also have plunging fertility rates. It’s the same with China, where women inspired by South Korea started their own “Four nos” movement; government data this month reveals its population is shrinking, too. But countries with cooperative fathers and good family policies, like Sweden, or that recognize diverse companionships, like France, have been more successful at stabilizing or even bumping up births.

The United Nations projects that South Korea’s 51 million population will halve before the end of the century. Survival of the nation is at stake.

Hawon Jung (@allyjung) is the author of the forthcoming “Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea’s Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women’s Rights Worldwide,” and a former Agence France-Presse reporter in Seoul. She splits her time between South Korea and Germany.

[mightyflamethrower]

Concerns Mount Over Exploding Electric Vehicles

1 day ago

Guest Blogger

65 Comments

From the DAILY SCEPTIC

BY CHRIS MORRISON

Safety concerns around electric vehicles continue to mount with Australian fire and rescue services in New South Wales stating they might have to make a “tactical disengagement” of a trapped car accident victim if the battery is likely to explode. Australian journalist Jo Nova covered the story, which was first mentioned in the EV blog The Driven, and commented: “They say the first responders need more training as if this can be solved with a certificate, but the dark truth is they’re talking about training the firemen and the truck drivers to recognise when they have to abandon the rescue.”

The Driven, a widely-read blog that seems highly sympathetic to a rollout of EVs, was reporting on recent testimony given to the NSW Government’s Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Batteries Inquiry. The writer suggested that first responders did not have adequate training to deal with electric vehicle collisions, and in the most serious cases, crews could be forced to abandon rescues. One particular area of concern seemed to revolve around the need to extract a trapped casualty quickly after a crash by dragging the person out in a “very undesirable manner”. Fires are a grave risk in any vehicle accident, but they can be quickly brought under control in an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle.

Worries about the potential dangers inherent in EVs is likely to grow as numbers on the roads continue to rise. EV battery explosions can occur very quickly, triggering the release of highly toxic gases. When they roar into thermal overdrive, they create very high temperatures and are very difficult to extinguish. The explosion can occur after almost any collision, or be due to a fault in the initial manufacture. The fire often takes hours to control and it can reignited days after it was thought to be out. With Net Zero fanatics desperate to drive ICE cars off the road in short order, EVs are the only mass private transport solution offered. Many of the issues, including safety, that make them an inferior product compared to petrol-powered combustion cars are often ignored.

Just what can be involved in putting out a fire in an EV was dramatically detailed in a recent press release from the Wakefield Fire Dept in Massachusetts. It was called out to deal with a burning Tesla on a snowy Interstate 95, and reported:

Wakefield Engine 1 and Ladder 1 initiated suppression operations, applying copious amounts of water onto the vehicle. Multiple surrounding mutual aid communities responded as well to support firefighting operations and to create a water shuttle to bring water continually to the scene. Engines from Melrose, Stoneham, Reading, Lynnfield as well as a Middleton water tanker assisted. Firefighters had three 1¾-inch hand lines as well as a ‘blitz gun’ in operation to cool the battery compartment… Lynnfield crews established a continuous 4-inch supply line from Vernon Street up to the highway. The fire was declared under control and fully extinguished after about two and a half hours… The vehicle was removed from the scene after consulting with the Hazmat Unit… The crews did a great job, especially in the middle of storm conditions – on a busy highway.

There is little doubt that EV fires are on the rise. In the U.K., CE Safety runs Freedom of Information checks on local fire brigades and its latest survey shows an alarming rise in conflagrations. In Greater London in the 2017-2022 period, there were a reported 507 battery fires from a number of EV types, but CE Safety found a “gigantic” 219 conflagrations in 2022-23 alone. Lancashire was said to rank second with 15 EV battery fires, but this was 10 more in a single year than recorded in the five years between 2017-2022. Overall “it was concerning” to discover that the number of electric battery fires during 2022-2023 was higher in most areas than the data showed over five years from 2017 to 2022. During that year, 14 buses suffered battery fires.

There was a substantial increase in the number of e-bikes catching fire, with CE Safety noting that lithium is highly flammable and reactive. “Over-charging presents a massive risk to households with lithium-powered vehicles,” the safety organisation observed.

Concern is also rising over the transportation of EVs on car ferries. Recently, Havila Kystruten, which operates a fleet of car ferries around the coast of Norway, has banned the transportation of electric, hybrid and hydrogen vehicles. According to a report in the Maritime Executive, it is the latest step by the shipping industry, “which has become acutely aware of the increasing danger of transporting EV and other alternate fuel vessels”.

Havila’s Managing Director Bent Martini said a risk analysis had shown a fire at sea in a fossil fuel vehicle could be handled by on-board systems. “A possible fire in electric, hybrid or hydrogen cars will require external rescue efforts and could put people on board and the ships at risk,” he said. That of course is the nightmare scenario. If fire breaks out on a ferry making a 20-mile crossing in good weather, the chances of all passengers and crew surviving are good. Less good, perhaps, if fire was to break out and fill the ship with toxic smoke in the middle of a stormy November night while crossing the Bay of Biscay. Chances of survival would be diminished if the high temperatures caused nearby EVs to explode.

Mercifully, we are less and less likely to see such accidents. The list of disadvantages of EVs is lengthening by the day. Environmental concerns about the manufacture and mining of raw materials have been raised, while ‘range anxiety’ is common among drivers. EVs are more expensive than ICE cars, while knackered batteries mean that second-hand values are very poor. For those who would see the back of them, the graph below might provide some comfort.

This shows the recent decline in the share price of the American car hire giant Hertz. Back in 2021, the company pushed ahead with huge purchases of Teslas. In January it dumped 20,000 of them, and last month pushed another 10,000 onto a sagging second-hand market. Out in the real world – the world where people create wealth by providing what other people actually want – fewer drivers seemed willing to hire them. The share price tells its own sorry story. Meanwhile, EV sales across Europe tend to be driven by unsustainable tax breaks, while the cars are mainly popular with wealthy people as a second or third city runabout. An enforced political adoption of EVs is likely to destroy vast swathes of the European car industry, unable to compete with cheap Chinese imports.

If the aim is to take away personal transport for the masses, EVs are an excellent idea. Whether that will ultimately play well at the ballot box is another matter.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.

I would not be able to sleep at night knowing I had a ticking time bomb parked in my garage.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 23, 2023

Heather Cox Richardson

While the latest machinations from Trump are taking up oxygen, the debt ceiling crisis hasn’t gone away. Indeed, just as it is becoming more and more urgent, Republican far-right extremists are becoming more committed to using the opportunity to blow up the economy as a way to get their wishes. The uncertainty that followed the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank illustrated just how quick and how dangerous even a relatively minor banking crisis could be, but far-right Republicans are not backing off on their threat to refuse to raise the debt ceiling without concessions from Democrats. Two months ago, in response to a question about “whether you think this debt ceiling is going to be used as a bargaining chip in some way that could turn dangerous?” the chair of the House Budget Committee, Jodey Arrington (R-TX), said, “I believe it will and I believe it has to.” Now, in the wake of the banking crisis, Arrington says the uncertainty after the banking instability means that “[t]his is the best time to do it.” Republicans are arguing that the inflation of the past year is the result of pandemic-era spending and that by threatening the debt ceiling, they can bring that spending under control. But let’s be very clear on this: the debt ceiling is not about future spending. It is about the amount of money Congress authorizes the Treasury to borrow in order to pay obligations that already exist. It is not associated with any individual bill, and it is not an appropriation for any specific program. It enables the government to borrow money to pay for programs in bills already passed. If Congress does not raise the debt ceiling when necessary, the government will default on its debts, sparking a financial catastrophe. Future spending is in the government’s annual budget. The budget process starts when the president submits a detailed budget request to Congress for the fiscal year that starts on October 1, usually by the first Monday in February, though sometimes that is delayed (as it was this year). The president’s budget shows what the administration thinks is important to fund and how much that will cost. Congress is then supposed to consider the president’s budget, hold hearings to ask administration officials why they need certain items or have gotten rid of others, and then develop its own plan. This budget resolution, as it is called, sets amounts that Congress thinks are appropriate for different parts of the budget. Congress is supposed to pass that budget resolution by April 15 (even though it rarely does). Appropriations bills then fund the items in the budget. President Biden introduced his detailed budget on March 9, deliberately using it as a way to signal his determination to use the government to help ordinary Americans rather than the wealthy and corporations. He is operating under the belief that the economy grows fastest and does better for most people when the government invests in jobs, education, and social services rather than when it tries to free up as much capital as possible for wealthy investors. This is the Republican plan, which is based on the idea that the wealthy will invest in the economy and create jobs. Biden called for funding programs—while also cutting the deficit—by rolling back the Republicans' 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, by imposing a 25% tax on billionaires, and by raising the tax on stock buybacks. Republicans have attacked Biden’s budget, but they have not produced one of their own. They likely can’t produce one, because the only way for House Republicans to deliver the cost savings they have promised is to cut Social Security and Medicare, cuts they have advocated for years. But at his State of the Union address, when prominent Republicans yelled that he was a liar for suggesting they wanted to cut those popular programs, Biden backed them into vowing not to cut them. Then, earlier this month, in response to a request from Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), the Congressional Budget Office wrote that if the Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations stay in place as Republicans wish and defense spending, Social Security, Medicare, and veterans’ programs are all protected—as Republicans now say they want to do—even zeroing out all other discretionary spending in the budget will not balance it by 2033. Arrington and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) say they will release the Republican budget after April 15, blaming Biden’s own late budget for their delay. But because they have not launched an official plan, they have left an opening for the far-right House Freedom Caucus of around three dozen lawmakers to step into the gap. On March 10, Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) was in front as members of the Freedom Caucus issued a statement laying out the demands they want met before they will consider raising the debt ceiling. They want laws that cut current spending by stopping student loan relief, clawing back all unspent Covid-19 funds, and repealing the $80 billion in appropriations for the Internal Revenue Service and all the monies appropriated by the Inflation Reduction Act for addressing climate change. They want to cap future spending at 2022 levels, claiming a cap will cut “the wasteful, woke, and weaponized federal bureaucracy.” They demand further business deregulation and more work requirements on programs like Medicaid. If all that gets written into law, Freedom Caucus members “will consider voting to raise the debt ceiling.” Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), whose 11-point plan to “rescue America” was the one Biden pointed to most frequently as a Republican plan to cut Social Security and Medicare because it called for every law to end in five years and have to be repassed, said he was “very optimistic” about the Freedom Caucus’s plan. Just this week, McCarthy added the idea of tying changes to the permitting process for oil and mining development to the debt ceiling. But, in fact, the things the Republicans call for are not popular in the country, and the administration has been laying out piece by piece how the devastating cuts in the proposal would impact families, consumers, the elderly, and working Americans, all to increase tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. In any case, while it claims to be eager to negotiate over the budget, the Biden White House maintains it will not negotiate over the debt ceiling, especially as the current financial woes are attributable in large part to the explosion of the deficit and debt under Trump. Republicans seem hell-bent on doing so, expecting that the Democrats will ultimately back down rather than permit the Republicans to destroy the economy. In the past, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has managed to bring Republicans around, but now he is out of commission from his fall. It is against this backdrop that Republicans have rushed to defend Trump, who is pretty clearly trying to whip up his supporters to violence. His antics have gotten so extreme that he posted an image today of Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg beside an image of himself brandishing a baseball bat. Today, citing Trump’s apparent calls for violence, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered that the jurors in the case of E. Jean Carroll’s rape accusations against Trump be kept anonymous for their own safety. The case goes to trial next month. Republicans seem to be working with Trump to keep him in the news, perhaps aware that he is drowning out both the debt ceiling crisis and their inability to produce a budget. Three days ago, Jim Jordan (R-OH), James Comer (R-KY), and Bryan Steil (R-WI) demanded that Bragg deliver to them all information related to his investigation into Trump. Today the Manhattan DA’s general counsel Leslie B. Dubeck correctly called their demand an “unprecedented” federal intrusion into an independent local investigation that unlawfully undermined New York’s sovereignty. She added: “The Letter only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene. Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry.” She noted that Trump’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, had written a letter to Jordan encouraging Congress to investigate Bragg. Now a different case is suddenly imperiling Trump. Yesterday a federal appeals court ruled that Trump attorney Evan Corcoran must turn over records to Special Counsel Jack Smith and testify before the grand jury in the investigation into Trump’s theft of classified documents. Judge Beryl Howell said last week that Trump could not use attorney-client privilege to block Corcoran’s participation because prosecutors in Smith’s office had shown sufficient evidence to support the claim that Trump had committed a crime, triggering the “crime-fraud” exception to attorney-client privilege. Trump’s lawyers appealed, and the appeals court agreed with Howell. A Trump spokesperson told ABC News: "There is no factual or legal basis or substance to any case against President Trump." Corcoran is testifying tomorrow.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mattmcginleydc]

Bloomberg Government Analysis of Lobbying Firms

Bloomberg Government (BGOV), a division of Bloomberg Industry Group аnd leading analytics firm, provides insights into legislative and regulatory development. It analyzes and rates lobbying firms across sectors and industries, enabling businesses and other beneficiaries to anticipate and adapt to policy changes and make informed decisions.

BGOV's latest report reveals lobbying spending has been on a multi-year growth track since 2016, climbing from $3.13 billion to a record $4.27 billion in 2023. A key driver in this upward trajectory is legislative focus on pressing issues such as inflation, energy policy, and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. Ongoing concerns include the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions that will expire and could further produce lobbying expenditures in the coming years.

BGOV's annual report emphasizes the role of lobbying firms as intermediaries between private interests and policymakers in the US in shaping the crafting and implementation of legislation. Some firms have rebranded after mergers to unify their identities, signal expanded services and expertise, and strengthen their market positioning to attract a diverse client base.

In its analysis of lobbying firms, BGOV evaluates top performers based on various criteria. A primary indicator is revenue generation and revenue growth over the lifespan of the lobbying firm. Another category identifies standout firms. Bloomberg Government analyzes firms that demonstrate consistent success, particularly in client retention over many years, which indicates long-term client satisfaction. Candidates consist of lobbying firms that have retained at least 80 percent of their clients annually and those with a three-year retention rate above 60 percent.

The strictness of this criterion is exemplified by the numbers. In 2022, out of the 363 firms meeting the minimum revenue threshold, only 82 met some standout criteria, and just 23 fulfilled all requirements. The 2024 report showed a slight increase in high-performing firms, though the group meeting all criteria remained exclusive.

In addition to analyzing specific performance areas, Bloomberg Government integrates all key business metrics - annual revenue growth, revenue per client, customer retention, and revenue per lobbyist - to identify top industry performers overall. Key performers over the years have included Brownstein, Hyatt Farber Schreck, BGR Government Affairs, and Advanced Policy Consulting, LLC.

Advanced Policy Consulting in particular, has shown consistent and exceptional performance, with various recognition highlighting its achievements. In 2023, BGOV recognized it as one of the top-performing lobbying firms, continuing a trend of similar honors from previous years, 2022 back to 2019. Advanced Policy Consulting was also recognized with the top lobbying honor as a Standout Lobbying firm in 2023, 2022 and 2020.

Bloomberg Government's annual analysis offers valuable insights into the lobbying industry's dynamics and key influencers. This information is crucial for businesses and professionals looking to understand industry trends, identify leading firms, and stay informed about regulatory developments that shape the lobbying landscape. Benefiting from this insight are key players in healthcare, manufacturing, technology, energy, tax, and other sectors, who learn where to allocate resources to maximize influence and achieve policy goals.

[ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly]

By Luke Broadwater

House Democrats on Friday accused former President Donald J. Trump of accepting “hundreds of unconstitutional and ethically suspect payments” through the Trump International Hotel in 2017 and 2018, moving weeks before the election to remind voters of the ethical issues raised by his refusal to divest from his businesses while in office.

The 58-page report from Democrats on the Oversight Committee includes their final findings in a yearslong investigation digging into the Trump Organization’s management of the hotel. It accuses Mr. Trump of ripping off the Secret Service by charging the agency exorbitant rates and of inappropriately accepting payments from clients who worked for state governments or were seeking appointments and pardons from him.

“Mr. Trump has made clear that he will not only refuse to divest from his businesses in a possible future presidency, but he will seek to multiply opportunities to commodify the Oval Office for his personal enrichment by turning thousands of civil service jobs into patronage positions — all with the attendant payoff possibilities from supplicant job-seekers and the prospective blessing of his handpicked Supreme Court justices,” said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee.

House Republicans dismissed the report as old news and accused Democrats of hypocrisy for investigating Mr. Trump but not members of President Biden’s family, including his son Hunter.

“Unlike the Bidens, the Trumps actually have businesses and made money from the services they provided,” said Jessica Collins, a spokeswoman for the Republican-led House Oversight Committee. “Today’s report is more recycled garbage from the Democrats’ fruitless and close to a decadelong investigation of President Trump.”

The committee has already documented how officials from other countries spent lavishly at Mr. Trump’s hotel in Washington while he was president and how the Secret Service was charged hefty prices for rooms.

Eric Trump, the former president’s son, has repeatedly claimed the organization charged the Secret Service a discounted rate. He has also said that any profit the company earned on the hotel stays from foreign officials was returned to the federal government through a voluntary annual payment to the Treasury Department. The Trump Organization has also said it did not have the ability to stop anyone from booking through third parties at the hotel.

“This is just another desperate attempt by House Democrats to rehash an old unsubstantiated story just two weeks before the upcoming presidential election in a last-minute effort to gain ground in the polls,” said Kimberly Benza, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization. “To be clear, the Trump Organization does not profit whatsoever from any government officials staying at our properties.”

But the report seeks to undercut those statements.

“Not only did President Trump’s hotel often charge the Secret Service far more than authorized federal government rates, the hotel also charged the agency far more than hundreds of other patrons, including members of a foreign royal family and a Chinese business interest,” the report states.

Democrats on the panel previously found the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service up to $1,185 per night for hotel roomsused by agents protecting former Mr. Trump and his family.

The latest report compares how much the Secret Service was charged at the hotel on the same nights as other guests.

For example, it says that on Nov. 28, 2017, the Secret Service approved a waiver to pay a room rate of $600 when the per diem for that month was $201 — a 300-percent markup. Room records show that a dozen rooms were rented that same night to the Inner Mongolia Yitai Coal Co. Ltd., which is headquartered in China, for a lower rate: $338.85 each.

Ms. Benza said the rates the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service were “at cost” and “well below market value.”

“Indeed, in most instances Secret Service would pay considerably more if they had stayed at hotels directly across the street,” she said. “Federal law requires this, otherwise we would be happy to accommodate Secret Service for free.”

The report also analyzes payments made by federal and state officials staying at the hotel, as well as people who sought — and obtained — favors from Mr. Trump, including federal jobs in his administration and presidential pardons. In just 11 months of the Trump hotel’s guest logs, the committee found 16 examples of state or federal officials who paid for rooms there, often while on official travel. The committee said such room rentals possibly violated the Constitution’s domestic emoluments clause if any taxpayer funds were used.

Democrats identified eight ambassadors; three people appointed by Mr. Trump to be federal judges; two governors; one delegation from a state legislature; and two executive branch officials who stayed at the hotel during the 11 months analyzed.

In addition, five people who sought and received presidential pardons — Elliott Broidy, Ken Kurson, Dinesh D’Souza, James Kassouf and Albert Pirro — stayed at the hotel, the report found. Together, they spent more than $21,000.

Democrats on the committee acknowledge that many of the transactions documented in the report were not for eye-popping dollar figures; their cumulative total was about $300,000.

The report also acknowledges its own limitations. Democrats fought aggressively through years of litigation to gain access to only a portion of Mr. Trump’s business records. After they won court rulings, Mazars USA, the longtime accounting firm for Mr. Trump that cut ties with him and his family business, began turning over documents in 2022 related to his financial dealings.

But once Republicans won control of the House, they dropped the effort to force Mazars to continue with its production of documents about Mr. Trump’s business dealings.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/18/us/politics/trump-hotel-report.html

[jobustad]

New Punjab Rural Municipal Service Company Jobs in Lahore October 2024 Advertisement

New Punjab Rural Municipal Service Company Jobs in Lahore October 2024 has been announce through Latest advertisement (PRMSC) is a government-owned not-for-profit company, incorporated with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, under Section 42 of the Companies Act, 2017. The Company is executing a World Bank funded project led “Punjab Rural Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation…

[qnewsau]

Tas Lower House backs redress for victims of anti-LGBTQ+ laws

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/tas-lower-house-backs-redress-for-victims-of-anti-lgbtq-laws/

Tas Lower House backs redress for victims of anti-LGBTQ+ laws

Last night the Tasmanian Parliament’s Lower House passed the nation’s first financial redress scheme for anti-LGBT laws. 

The scheme was introduced by Greens’ leader Rosalie Woodruff, and supported by Labor and independent MPs, during debate on Liberal Government legislation updating the state’s legislation allowing criminal records for homosexuality and cross-dressing to be expunged from outward-facing government records.

“The redress scheme is long overdue recognition of the trauma and suffering of those people convicted for being who they were,” Equality Tasmania spokesperson Rodney Croome said.

“Often they lost jobs, family and community, with many leaving the state and some taking their own lives.

“Financial redress for historic gay convictions is available in some European countries but this is the first time in Australia.

“Tasmania was the last state to decriminalise homosexuality and the only state to criminalise cross-dressing, so it is appropriate we are leading the nation and we hope other states will follow.

“We thank Greens’ leader, Rosalie Woodruff, for championing this amendment as well as her Green colleagues, Labor and cross-bench independents for strongly supporting it.”

The redress scheme was recommended by a review of the expungement legislation and has been advocated by Equality Tasmania and other groups including the Tasmanian Council of Social Services and Civil Liberties Tasmania.

The Government did not support the redress scheme but its bill updating 2017 expungement legislation widens the definition of crimes that can be expunged to include crimes such as resisting arrest for homosexuality and cross-dressing, which would not have occurred if homosexuality or cross-dressing had not been illegal.

The bill also provides for greater promotion of the expungement scheme.

Homosexuality was decriminalised in Tasmania in 1997 and cross-dressing in 2000. Tasmania’s cross-dressing laws were disprortionately enforced against transgender women.

The bill now goes to the state’s Upper House.

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[taxandaccountingmumbai]

Understanding GST and Income Tax Through Specialized Taxation Courses

In today’s fast-paced financial landscape, understanding the intricacies of tax laws is crucial for individuals and businesses alike. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) and Income Tax are two of the most significant components of the Indian taxation system. With frequent updates and complex regulations, mastering these taxes can be challenging. However, specialized taxation courses offer a structured pathway to gaining a comprehensive understanding of both GST and Income Tax, enabling professionals and students to navigate these complexities with confidence.

Why Understanding GST and Income Tax Matters

GST and Income Tax are foundational elements of the Indian economy. GST, implemented in 2017, is a unified tax system that replaced a myriad of indirect taxes such as VAT, service tax, and excise duty. It simplifies the tax structure by applying a single tax on the supply of goods and services across the country. Income Tax, on the other hand, is a direct tax levied on the income of individuals and businesses, forming a significant part of the government’s revenue.

For businesses, understanding GST is vital for compliance and optimizing tax liability. Accurate GST filing ensures that businesses can claim input tax credit, avoid penalties, and maintain smooth operations. Similarly, comprehending Income Tax regulations is essential for individuals and businesses to plan their finances, minimize tax burdens, and ensure legal compliance.

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Expert Guidance: Courses are usually taught by industry experts and experienced tax professionals who provide valuable insights and practical tips. This expert guidance ensures that learners can apply theoretical knowledge to real-world scenarios, making them job-ready.

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By enrolling in a specialized taxation course, learners can expect to:

Gain a deep understanding of GST: From registration to return filing and compliance, courses cover all aspects of GST, helping learners to manage their GST responsibilities effectively.

Master Income Tax concepts: Courses delve into the intricacies of Income Tax, including tax planning, deductions, and assessments, enabling learners to handle tax matters with confidence.

Stay updated with the latest tax laws: Regular updates to the course material ensure that learners are always informed about the latest changes in tax laws, helping them stay compliant.

Develop practical skills: Hands-on assignments and projects provide practical experience in using tax software and managing tax-related tasks, making learners job-ready.

Enhance career prospects: Specialized knowledge in GST and Income Tax is highly valued in the job market, opening up numerous career opportunities in taxation, finance, and accounting.

Conclusion

Understanding GST and Income Tax course online is essential for anyone involved in finance, accounting, or business management. Specialized taxation courses offer a structured and comprehensive approach to mastering these critical areas, providing learners with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to navigate the complex world of taxation. Whether you are looking to advance your career or manage your business’s tax responsibilities more effectively, enrolling in a taxation course can be a game-changer.

[readingsquotes]

"The ADL has come under fire in recent years as it has leveled charges of antisemitism against leftwing Jewish groups, Black Lives Matter, Palestinian rights groups and other organizations critical of Israel. It has increasingly lobbied for federal legislation on antisemitism, some of which critics say is intended to target leftwing Jewish and Palestinian rights groups.

It has become more aggressive since the Gaza war’s outset, but its credibility has also suffered – most recently, Wikipedia’s editors found the ADL could not be trusted to give reliable information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The memo is the latest evidence that the ADL has spied on, surveilled or tracked its opponents on the left and right. In 1993, the ADL faced multiple lawsuits and an FBI investigation over a nationwide intelligence network it developed over the span of several decades with an investigator on its payroll, Roy Bullock.

Bullock was alleged to have infiltrated or kept files on the United Auto Workers union, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, neo-Nazi groups, Mother Jones magazine, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP and many more. He also allegedly sold personal information on US politicians and others to the apartheid South African government at the ADL’s behest. The ADL initially backed the apartheid regime, labeling Nelson Mandela’s party “totalitarian, anti-humane, anti-democratic, anti-Israel, and anti-American”.

In the wake of the far-right’s deadly 2017 Charlottesville rally, the ADL, which also tracks white supremacy, claimed it did not “directly” track leftwing groups. However, it put up a post on its website around that time encouraging police to surveil and infiltrate anti-fascist groups.

...

Delia states in the 2020 memo that he was asked to assess the activist during a recent “JVP meeting”, referencing the leftwing US Jewish group, a regular ADL target.

In a statement, JVP executive director Stefanie Fox said: “It’s appalling, though not surprising, that the ADL is spending enormous time and resources attacking one of the largest progressive Jewish organizations in the country and surveilling African American organizers.”

..

Delia included a quote from Rebelle’s social media, in which they express they are “no longer in the business of helping white folks cope with their privilege, nor speaking out against the terrorism of white supremacy or state sanctioned murder of Black and brown folks by the police”.

“As always, remember Black Lives Matter, Free Palestine, gender and sexuality is a spectrum, Indigenous rights matter, climate change is real, defund the police, and there is no change without discomfort. Peace upon you all.”

Rebelle said they had been previously targeted by local white nationalists and pro-Israel groups that tried to get them fired from jobs or removed from speaking engagements, but the ADL memo came as a surprise because the group was not involved her work in Indianapolis.

Rebelle said the ADL was “targeting black queer folks”, and is evidence of a larger problem with the organization.

...

Fox said the surveilling shows the ADL “is simply not credible as a civil rights organization”.

“They are willing to trample on civil rights, smear racial justice activists, and harm progressive movements in order to advance their primary work: ensuring Israeli occupation, apartheid, and genocide go unchecked and unchallenged,” she said.

[glocalaccountingservice]

In the complex landscape of modern business, navigating the intricacies of tax regulations and compliance can be daunting. Several key tax laws in the USA govern business accounts, and local accounting firms play a crucial role in ensuring compliance and optimizing business tax strategies. Here are a few notable tax laws and how outsourced accounting firms can help:

Internal Revenue Code (IRC): The IRC is the primary source of federal tax law in the United States. It covers various aspects of taxation, including income tax, payroll tax, and estate tax. Local accounting firms stay up-to-date with the latest changes in the IRC to help businesses comply with federal tax laws and take advantage of available deductions and credits.

Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA): Enacted in 2017, the TCJA made significant changes to the federal tax code, impacting businesses of all sizes. Local accounting firms help businesses navigate the complexities of the TCJA, such as the new corporate tax rates, qualified business income deductions, and changes to depreciation rules.

State and Local Taxes (SALT): Businesses are also subject to state and local taxes, which vary widely depending on the location. Local accounting firms have expertise in state and local tax laws and can help businesses comply with these requirements while minimizing their tax burden.

Sales and Use Tax: Businesses that sell goods or services may be subject to sales and use tax, which can vary by state and locality. Local accounting firms can help businesses understand their sales tax obligations, collect and remit sales tax, and navigate sales tax audits.

Employment Taxes: Businesses are responsible for withholding and remitting employment taxes, including Social Security and Medicare taxes, federal income tax withholding, and unemployment taxes. Local accounting firms can help businesses comply with these requirements and avoid penalties.

For many companies in the USA, outsourcing their accounting functions to specialized firms has become a trend and a strategic imperative for ensuring financial health and success. Accounting outsourcing companies, such as Glocal Accounting, provide expertise and solutions beyond mere number-crunching to provide strategic tax solutions tailored to each client’s needs.

One of the key roles of accounting outsourcing companies is ensuring compliance with the USA’s ever-changing tax laws and regulations. With a team of skilled professionals well-versed in tax codes and regulations, these firms can navigate the complex tax landscape, identify potential risks, and implement mitigation strategies. This not only helps businesses avoid costly penalties and fines but also ensures that they can take advantage of any tax-saving opportunities that may arise.

Furthermore, accounting outsourcing companies like Glocal Accounting offer a unique advantage by helping businesses optimize their tax strategies. By analyzing financial data and identifying areas where tax savings can be realized, these firms are able to help businesses structure their operations in a tax-efficient manner. This may include advising on the optimal use of tax credits and deductions, as well as exploring other tax planning strategies that can help minimize tax liabilities and maximize profitability.

In addition to compliance and tax planning, accounting outsourcing companies provide valuable insights and analysis to help businesses make informed financial decisions. By providing timely and accurate financial reports, these firms enable businesses to monitor their financial health, identify trends, and make strategic decisions that can drive growth and profitability.

In conclusion, accounting outsourcing companies play a critical role in the success of businesses in the USA by providing strategic tax solutions that ensure compliance, optimize tax strategies, and provide valuable insights for informed decision-making. With its expertise and dedication to client success, Glocal Accounting is a leading provider of accounting outsourcing services that can help businesses achieve their financial goals. Contact Glocal Accounting today to learn more about how their services can benefit your business: www.glocalas.com 

[govindhtech]

Powerful AMD EPYC 9654 Beats 5th Gen Intel Xeon Processors

AMD EPYC Gen 4 vs Intel Xeon 5th Gen: A Battle for Server Supremacy

The recent availability of 5th Gen Intel Xeon processors allows testing of 4th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs on critical workloads. AMD EPYC 9654 beats competitors in data centre performance, power efficiency, and cost. AMD EPYC CPU hold over 300 performance world records, and Intel’s latest release maintains our lead. Over 250 server designs and 800 cloud instances comprise AMD EPYC.

SPECpower

Modern data centers manage power utilization to meet growing needs, save costs, and satisfy environmental goals. The System Under Test’s power and performance are used to compare volume server class computers’ energy efficiency in the SPECpower ssj 2008 benchmark. SPECpower was the first industry benchmark for single- and multi-node server power and performance.

Consumers can compare server and configuration energy efficiency using the SPECpower ssj 2008 benchmark. This benchmark applies to hardware, IT, OEM, and government companies. The SPECpower ssj 2008 statistic assesses SUT power efficiency as “overall ssj ops/watt”. It is the ratio of the overall throughput ssj ops, which is the sum of all target load scores, to their average watt power consumption.

AMD EPYC 9754

AMD EPYC 4th Gen excels at power efficiency. A dual-socket system with 128-core AMD EPYC 9754 processors outscored Intel Xeon Platinum 8592+ by 2.25x.

AMD EPYC 9554

Industry benchmarks for compute-intensive jobs include the SPEC CPU 2017 test, which stresses the processor, memory subsystem, and compiler on various computer systems. This blog discusses SPECrate 2017 Integer and Floating Point, two of SPEC CPU 2017’s four suites’ 43 benchmarks.

On SPECrate 2017, 32-core AMD EPYC 9374F machine surpasses Intel Xeon Scalable 8562Y+ by ~1.14x (base) and ~1.06x (64 cores). 2P 64-core AMD EPYC 9554 systems outperform Intel Xeon Scalable 8592+ in SPECrate 2017 and similar.

Top performer: SPECrate 2017 ranked 2P 64-core Intel Xeon Scalable 8592+ behind 2P 96-core AMD EPYC 9654. SPECjbb2015 was considered simulates a corporate IT infrastructure that handles point-of-sale requests, online transactions, and data-mining to test server-side Java applications. Because Java is so popular, JVM providers, hardware manufacturers, Java application developers, academics, and academia should evaluate this benchmark.

AMD EPYC 9554 64-core processor

64 cores A dual-socket 64-core AMD EPYC 9554 machine performs comparably to an Intel Xeon Scalable 8592+ on SPECjbb 2015 MultiJVM-maxJOPS.

Top of stack: A dual-socket 96-core general purpose AMD EPYC 9654 machine outperforms a 64-core Intel Xeon Scalable 8592+ system 1.48x on SPECjbb 2015 MultiJVM-maxJOPS.

Decision Support System

The decision support benchmark TPC Benchmark H (TPC-H) evaluates systems that handle complex business queries by running sophisticated queries over big datasets. This benchmark’s queries and data manipulations affect several industries.

TPC-H’s Composite Query-per-Hour Performance Metric (QphH Size) evaluates query processing. When handling concurrent user requests, database sizes, query stream processing, and query throughput are considered. A system’s price-performance ratio, or “bang for the buck,” is likewise assessed by TPC-H.

A 2P 64-core AMD EPYC 9554 system outperforms a 2P Intel Xeon Scalable 8592+ system by ~1.14x and ~1.22x at SF 10000 in price-performance TPC-H.

Business Uses

Key SAP ERP logistics module is SAP Sales and Distribution (SAP SD). SAP Application Performance Standard units’ database efficiency is measured using the SAP-SD 2-Tier benchmark to assess hardware performance. SAPS is hardware-independent and uses the Sales and Distribution (SD) benchmark to evaluate SAP systems. Recently, a 2P system with 96-core AMD EPYC 9654 processors outscored a 64-core Intel Xeon Platinum 8592+ by ~1.53x. For further information, refer to my blog post “4th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs Empower SAP SD 2-Tier Performance.”

In four generations of general-purpose AMD EPYC processors, “top of stack” CPU SKUs enhanced performance. It also indicates that AMD EPYC 2nd Gen and later outperform Intel Xeon processors.

The Virtualization Infrastructure

VMmark 3 benchmarks virtualized server performance, power efficiency, and scalability on physical hardware under intense loads. Server capabilities and virtualization solutions are compared for strengths and limitations.

AMD EPYC 9654

A 2P 64-core AMD EPYC 9554 machine outperforms a 2P Intel Xeon Scalable 8592+ system 1.29x on VMmark 3. In VMmark 3, a 2P 96-core AMD EPYC 9654 system outperforms a 2P 64-core Intel Xeon Scalable 8592+ system by ~1.60x.

Powerful computing

HPC predicts major climate events and enhances transit and infrastructure safety, making it part of almost every modern activity. Optimizing material use, simplifying designs, and lowering development costs lowers prices. Rapid virtual prototyping reduces physical testing and speeds market entry.

Demand for HPC workload performance rises. Performance increases enable faster simulations, shorter product development cycles, more scenario testing, and finer model tweaks, making products more effective and efficient. Explore 4th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs HPC dominance.

AMD EPYC 9374F

CFD models and studies fluid behavior like water flowing around a boat hull or air around a vehicle or aircraft using numerical analysis. Uses include industrial and consumer goods. Memory bandwidth limits computationally demanding CFD activities.

Altair AcuSolve: Without CFD, Altair AcuSolve allows organizations investigate ideas using flow, heat transfer, turbulence, and non-Newtonian material analysis. In AcuSolve’s acus-in test, a 2P 32-core AMD EPYC 9374F machine surpasses an Intel Xeon Scalable 8562Y+ system by ~1.46x. Ansys CFX: High-performance CFD software provides fast, reliable, and accurate solutions for a variety of CFD and Multiphysics applications. In several CFX tests, a 32-core AMD EPYC 9374F machine outperformed an Intel Xeon Scalable 8562Y+ system by ~1.48x. Ansys Fluent: Advanced physics modelling and industry-leading accuracy characterize this fluid simulation package. A 2P 32-core AMD EPYC 9374F machine outperformed a 2P Intel Xeon Scalable 8562Y+ system performance ~1.25x in chosen Fluent tests.

OpenFOAM CFD software is free and open-source. Academic and commercial institutions use it. In OpenFOAM tests, a 2P 64-core AMD EPYC 9554 system outperformed an Intel Xeon Scalable 8592+ and a top-of-stack general purpose system by ~1.14x. A 2P 96-core AMD EPYC 9654 system outscored a 64-core Intel Scalable 8592+ system by ~1.22 in FEA Clear.

An explicit Finite Element Analysis (FEA) numerical simulation evaluates structures and materials under dynamic situations like impacts, explosions, and crashes. The auto industry uses FEA to predict crash behavior and evaluate occupant safety. Cell phone manufacturers use FEA to simulate drop tests for durability. Simulations save manufacturers time and money by testing designs online instead of prototyping.

These simulations involve complex digital replicas of items like cars and phones. To reproduce dynamic events like impacts, models solve differential equations over time. Model part interactions are assessed for deformations or failures. The calculations demand lots of memory and processing power. Due to model interconnectivity, compute nodes must communicate to exchange information about model elements’ effects.

AMD EPYC 9374F Benchmark

A prominent explicit simulation programme is Ansys LS-DYNA. Complex short-duration events in automobile, aircraft, construction, military, manufacturing, and biotechnology are simulated. In some LS-DYNA tests, the 2P 32-core AMD EPYC 9374F machine outperformed the Intel Xeon Scalable 8562Y+ system by ~1.50x.

Altair Radioss measures impact or crash structures. It benchmarks hardware using common usage issues. The 2P 32-core AMD EPYC 9374F system outperformed the Intel Xeon Scalable 8562Y+ workstation by ~1.25x in some Radioss tests.

AMD EPYC 9654 96-core processor

Molecular Dynamics

Newton’s equations are solved using molecular dynamics to analyze atoms and molecules. Molecular systems can be studied by analyzing material behavior, protein folding, and chemical processes. For hundreds to millions of particles, GROMACS simulates Newtonian motion using modular dynamics. A 2P 64-core AMD EPYC 9554 system provides ~1.24x the average performance of an Intel Xeon Scalable 8592+ system, outperforming competing datacenter CPUs. A top-of-the-stack 2P 96-core AMD EPYC 9654 machine outperforms Intel CPU systems by ~1.63x in GROMACS tests.

AMD EPYC 9554 64-core processor

Quantum chemistry

Quantum chemistry illuminates bonding and reactions through molecule structure, energetics, and reactivity. In quantum chemistry and solid-state physics, CP2K duplicates atomic systems. 2P 64-core AMD EPYC 9554 system outscored Intel Xeon Scalable 8592+ by ~1.27x in H2O-dft-ls test, whereas top-of-stack The AMD EPYC 9654 outperformed the Intel processing system by ~1.62 (Weather Forecast).

The conus2.5km test showed a 2P 64-core AMD EPYC 9554 system outperforming a 2P Intel Xeon Scalable 8592+ system by ~1.30x, and a top-of-the-line 2P 96-core AMD EPYC 9654 system outperforming the Intel system by ~1.50.

Conclusion

This blog revealed that 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors outperformed 5th Gen Intel Xeons in critical tasks. The comparisons above show that 4th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs perform well and reliably in industry-critical tasks. 4th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs excel in virtualized environments, molecular dynamics, and quantum chemistry simulations. Leading operating systems, hypervisors, and cloud services support AMD EPYC CPUs. The AMD Documentation Hub offers BIOS and OS tunings for different workloads to improve performance.

AMD delivers innovative technology beyond processors:

AMD Instinct Accelerators: These accelerators assist scientists tackle complex challenges in various industries through exascale discoveries. They power scientific research, data analytics, machine learning, and other demanding applications with high-performance computing.

AMD Pensando DPUs enable cloud, computing, networking, storage, and security software-defined programming. These technologies improve productivity, performance, and scalability over present infrastructures wherever data is. Programmable infrastructure pieces provide data centre agility.

AMD FPGAs, hardware-adaptive SoCs, and ACAP processing platforms are adaptable and adaptive. These technologies boost endpoint, edge, and cloud infrastructure innovation.

Developers can adapt and optimize solutions for specific applications and use cases, enhancing processing efficiency.

Read more on govindhtech.com

[hrblusky]

Are You Aware That UAE Has Implanted Equal Wages and Salaries 

A new UAE law ensuring equal pay for men and women in the private sector came into operation on 25th September 2020. 

The government of the United Arab Emirates continues to ensure equal opportunity for men and women in the workplace. 

The UAE has made significant strides in recent years in its effort to promote gender equality. In 2015, it set up a committee called the ‘Gender Balance Council’, which is responsible to integrate the gender into policies and programmes, in addition implementing the gender balance in the leadership roles of the organizations. This initiative confronted the position of UAE among the countries in the aspect of gender balance. 

In 2018, the cabinet of UAE has approved the issuance of a law amendment of Equal Wages and Salaries for Men and Women with the intention to provide equal opportunities. In fact, UAE needs to empower women to lead the future UAE development to lead the future national strategies. This is also a part of the women empowerment of Emirti women launched by the government. As part of narrowing down the gender gap, UAE strives to ensure the rights and protection to support their role in national development. 

Does UAE Released Gender Balance Guide 

In the year of 2017, a gender balance guide was launched by Gender Balance Council, which states the actions to be performed by the UAE organizations. The guide recommends the following actionable points for the organization to keep check on the gender balance. They are: 

Implement an oversight and commitment for the gender balance 

Integration of gender related policies and programme 

Execute transparent gender sensitive information 

Employee engagement towards the gender balance 

Implementation of gender balance in the leading positions 

UAE’s Law Based on Equal Wages for Women and Men 

The UAE cabinet passed the law on equal wages and salaries for men and women, in 2018. This law clarifies the government’s objective in ensuring women equality and support in the process of empowering them. The national development strategies include the initiatives of empowerment of Emirati Women launched by the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood and Supreme Chairwoman of the Family Development Foundation. If the performance of a woman matches that of the others, she shall be given equal wages. According to Article 32 of the UAE labor law, the government strives to promote and empower social inclusions. 

Do you Know the Other Protection Measures for Working Women? 

Special provisions for women employees were laid down by the UAE’s labor law under the article 27 to 34. Listed here are the few noteworthy provisions. 

Women shall not be employed between the time 10:00 PM and 07:00 AM with the sector exceptions such as healthcare, technical and administrative services 

Women shall be entitled to all sort of maternity benefits 

Women shall not be entitled to the same wage or any kind of physically challenging jobs 

Women shall be entitled to same wage that a man would earn for the same job 

From 2018 labor law to the latest labor law, HRBluSky updates all the HR professionals of UAE with the industry trend and the government amendments. 

[anjani1223]

Chittoor Tops Nation with 900 Km CC Roads in 2017–2018 Under N Chandrababu Leadership

In the realm of transformative governance, the Chittoor district, under the visionary leadership of N Chandrababu Naidu and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), has emerged as a beacon of progress, particularly in the infrastructure sector. The year 2017–2018 marked a pivotal moment as a staggering 900 kilometres of CC roads were laid in the district, securing the top position in the country. N. Chandrababu Naidu, the dynamic leader and former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, spearheaded this TDP agenda to enhance the connectivity and accessibility of the Chittoor district. His unwavering commitment to development and progressive TDP policies have positioned the TDP government as a driving force in shaping the infrastructure landscape of the region. Under Chandrababu Naidu's leadership, the TDP leaders played a crucial role in translating the vision into reality. Their strategic planning and dedication to public welfare have been instrumental in achieving the milestone of 900 kilometres of CC roads, laying the foundation for a more connected and prosperous Chittoor.

The TDP's achievements in Chittoor extend beyond just the construction of roads. The party has consistently demonstrated a commitment to holistic development, focusing on education, healthcare, and economic empowerment. These TDP achievements have not only garnered local acclaim but have also contributed to the overall growth and prosperity of the district. The positive impact of TDP's policies and contributions is evident in the latest news surrounding Chittoor's infrastructure development. The district's top position in the country for CC roads during 2017–2018 serves as a testament to the effectiveness of the Nara Chandrababu Naidu-led administration's initiatives. The TDP schemes in Chittoor have been designed to address the unique challenges of the region while fostering sustainable growth. The emphasis on infrastructure is part of a broader strategy to create an environment conducive to economic development, job creation, and improved quality of life for the residents.

As the region continues to benefit from the groundwork laid by N. Chandrababu Naidu and the TDP, it is crucial to acknowledge their TDP contributions not only in Chittoor but also in shaping the state of Andhra Pradesh. The party's commitment to progress and inclusive development has left an indelible mark on the socio-economic landscape of the region. In conclusion, the 900 kilometres of CC roads laid in the Chittoor district during 2017–2018, securing the top position in the country, is a testament to the visionary leadership of N Chandrababu Naidu and the unwavering dedication of TDP leaders. Their achievements, contributions, and policies have played a pivotal role in transforming Chittoor into a model of progress and development for the nation to admire.      

[tallmantall]

James Donaldson on Mental Health - Suicide rates in the US are on the rise: New study offers surprising reasons why

By Lisa Marshall After a long, steady decline in national suicide rates, those numbers began steadily ticking up in the late 1990s and have generally risen ever since, with nearly 50,000 people in the U.S. taking their own lives in 2022, up 3% from the previous year. Scholars seeking explanations for this troubling trend have pointed to everything from generally declining mental health to increased social media exposure and heightened access to firearms. But a new CU Boulder study points to two other surprising drivers: Increased access to potentially lethal prescription opioids has made it easier for women, specifically, to end their own lives; and a shrinking federal safety net has contributed to rising suicide rates among all adults during tough economic times, the study suggests. “We contend that the U.S. federal government’s weak regulatory oversight of the pharmaceutical industry and tattered social safety nets have significantly shaped U.S. suicide risk,” said first author Daniel Simon, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology and research affiliate with the Institute of Behavioral Science. #James Donaldson notes:Welcome to the “next chapter” of my life… being a voice and an advocate for #mentalhealthawarenessandsuicideprevention, especially pertaining to our younger generation of students and student-athletes.Getting men to speak up and reach out for help and assistance is one of my passions. Us men need to not suffer in silence or drown our sorrows in alcohol, hang out at bars and strip joints, or get involved with drug use.Having gone through a recent bout of #depression and #suicidalthoughts myself, I realize now, that I can make a huge difference in the lives of so many by sharing my story, and by sharing various resources I come across as I work in this space.  #http://bit.ly/JamesMentalHealthArticleFind out more about the work I do on my 501c3 non-profit foundationwebsite www.yourgiftoflife.org Order your copy of James Donaldson's latest book,#CelebratingYourGiftofLife: From The Verge of Suicide to a Life of Purpose and Joy www.celebratingyourgiftoflife.com Link for 40 Habits Signupbit.ly/40HabitsofMentalHealth If you'd like to follow and receive my daily blog in to your inbox, just click on it with Follow It. Here's the link https://follow.it/james-donaldson-s-standing-above-the-crowd-s-blog-a-view-from-above-on-things-that-make-the-world-go-round?action=followPub A sweeping analysis For the study—published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior—Simon and Ryan Masters, associate sociology professor, analyzed records of more than 16 million deaths among U.S. adults between 1990 and 2017. When separating the nearly 600,000 suicide deaths by intentional poisoning versus non-poisoning (all other methods of self-harm), two notable spikes in the data emerged: in 1997 and 2007. Giving a person a job or proper health care can also be a suicide prevention tool.”–Dan Simon In 1997—one year after the long-acting opioid OxyContin hit the market and kicked off the nation’s opioid crisis—women’s suicide rates by poisoning (the preferred method among females) began ticking up by about 2% per year through 2017 after declining by about 3% annually over the previous decade.  Women aged 40 to 55 were hit hardest.  “In the late 1990s, the method women often consider using to attempt to end their life suddenly became much more potent and much more available, with devastating consequences,” said Simon. Notably, states without prescription drug monitoring programs experienced larger increases in women’s suicide rates from poisonings.  After controlling for other factors, the authors conclude that increased availability of opioids and other prescription drugs like benzodiazepines was solely responsible for driving women’s self-poisoning suicides rates up from 1997 to 2006. “Our study showed that the approval, easy access and over-prescription of opioid-based pain relievers had deleterious consequences for U.S. suicide rates for women, a reality that has been overlooked in discussions of the opioid epidemic,” said Simon. A tattered safety net Among all men and women, non-poisoning suicide rates remained relatively stable across the 1990s and 2000s. But in 2007, at the onset of the housing and financial crash that kicked off the Great Recession, these rates spiked and continued to climb, ticking up anywhere from 2% annually among Black men and 2.5% annually among white men to 9% annually among American Indian/Alaska Native women. These trends continued long after the recession subsided. Ryan Masters When looking at state-level financial indicators, the authors found that suicide rates strongly paralleled changes in states’ economic conditions, such as stagnating wages, higher unemployment and increased poverty.  Economic downturns are not always associated with increases in suicides. In Sweden during a massive economic crash from 1990 to 1994, suicide deaths did not increase, in part because the government invested in social safety net programs to minimize the health effects of financial strain, Simon said. While rates spiked at the onset of the Great Depression, they plummeted after the passage of the New Deal in 1933, which put Americans back to work via publicly funded projects. In contrast, U.S. policymakers during the Great Recession prioritized market stabilization, investing $2 trillion in the banking sector while cutting funding for federal housing and urban development programs by $3.8 billion, the authors note. “Oftentimes, the health consequences of an economic downturn can be mitigated by aggressive moves to alleviate the financial burden of individuals,” said Masters. “Unfortunately, that did not happen during the Great Recession or during the slow and unequal recovery since. This has left individuals more vulnerable to economic stressors and that likely has spilled over into the elevation of suicide rates.” The authors stress that a host of psychiatric and social factors can push individual suicide risk up. They hope their work can demonstrate that there are also broader “structural determinants” of suicide risk. “Suicide hotline crisis numbers and efforts to help people at the individual level are all amazing and necessary, but our work shows that higher-level, institutional interventions are also critical in addressing this crisis,” said Simon. “Giving a person a job or proper health care can also be a suicide-prevention tool.” If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. Read about suicide prevention resources at CU Boulder. Read the full article

[nursingucgconference]

What is healthcare management and it's benefits? Know it briefly at the 14IHNPUCG.

Blogs for Healthcare Administration

It's helpful to read blogs about healthcare administration from thought leaders in the sector to gain insight into the kinds of things prospective professionals could face in the workplace. Since the field of administration is so vast, whether you are still a student in a post-secondary institution or have an established job, there are many blogs that can help you expand your knowledge in the area.

The 14th International Healthcare, Hospital Management, Nursing, and Patient Safety Conference is accredited with Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits. Participate in the conference now to avail these certifications at the lowest cost. Join us in Dubai, UAE, on July 25-27, 2024. WhatsApp: https://wa.me/442033222718 Register here: https://nursing-healthcare.universeconferences.com/registration/ #CME #CPD #Nursing #Healthcare #Healthcare #publichealth #intensiveoutpatient #occupationaltherapy #careermedicaleducation #EmiratesNursingconferences

The World of Watchers

The well-known blog "Watcher's World" and the official blog of the Society of Hospital Medicine, "The Hospital Leader," merged in January 2017. The blog is written by Robert M. Watcher, M.D. and focuses on policies and practice concerns that impact physicians and patients. A physician's perspective on the latest methods and trends in the healthcare industry can help prospective administrators better comprehend how their decisions and actions impact the medical professionals under their supervision. Readers can better comprehend the attitudes, ideas, and dynamics present in the healthcare system thanks to Watcher's friendly tone and inclusion of personal stories. This blog is helpful for healthcare professionals of all stripes because of its distinct perspective and timely postings.

Renewal of Health Care

Threats to the fundamental principles of the healthcare system are the focus of the Health Care Renewal blog. Strong governance, ethical standards in the healthcare industry, and leadership are just a few of the topics this blog addresses for healthcare administrators. It is crucial for administrators to stay up to date on these developments so they can make the best decisions for their staff because they constantly have to deal with changes in laws and policies that impact how their facilities operate. Administrators are looked to by nurses, doctors, and other medical professionals for advice on how to deal with the evolving healthcare environment. This blog offers information on the most effective and preventive ways to deal with possible issues.

Healthcare Leadership Journal

This journal goes beyond the conventional notion of blogging by offering free, open-access resources to all healthcare professionals, whether you're looking to discuss ideas with other professionals or learn more about leadership in the field. Peruse articles spanning from 2009 to the present to obtain insights into managing and administering processes. Professionals who would like to contribute their own thoughts can submit papers on subjects like leadership styles, skill development, quality of care, and obstacles in the field.

Restorative Hospitals

Hospital CEOs and administrators can find excellent guidance and resources on the "Healing Hospitals" blog. Written in the category "Healthcare Administration" by Nick Jacobs:

discusses the social and cultural factors that have an impact on the healthcare industry.

examines the problems that professionals are currently facing.

connects personal tales

Jacobs is a significant figure to follow in the field of hospital management, having over 20 years of experience. He makes an effort to improve the text by including pertinent videos. Having this resource on your blog roll is essential, particularly if you're searching for a website that addresses a variety of topics that influence healthcare professionals in the modern world.

Submit your abstract, poster presentation, research papers. We are excited to announce the Call for Abstracts for the upcoming 14th International Healthcare, Hospital Management, Nursing, and Patient Safety Conference, scheduled to take place from July 25–27, 2024 at Dubai, UAE. Submit here: https://nursing-healthcare.universeconferences.com/submit-abstract/ #TechnologyandHealthcare #Dubaihealthcareconference #ReproductiveAI #FertilityTech #renovaplasticsurgery #healthexpo2024 #nursingsymposium #nursingcongress #medicalconferencesindubai2024