U.S. ambassador urges China to talk to the Dalai Lama

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama arrives at the Kangra airport on the outskirts of the northern hilltown of Dharamsala, India, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer

MAY 25, 2019 

BEIJING (Reuters) - China should hold talks with Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad told Chinese officials during a trip to the Himalayan region where he criticised Beijing for interfering in religious freedom.

Branstad visited Tibet last week, the first such trip by a U.S. ambassador since 2015, amid escalating trade and diplomatic tension between the two countries.

His visit followed the passing of a U.S. law in December that requires the United States to deny visas to Chinese officials in charge of implementing policies that restrict access to Tibet for foreigners, legislation that was denounced by China.

Branstad met Chinese government officials and Tibetan religious and cultural figures, and “raised our long-standing concerns about lack of consistent access” to Tibet, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said in an emailed statement on Saturday.

“He encouraged the Chinese government to engage in substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives, without preconditions, to seek a settlement that resolves differences,” an embassy spokeswoman said.

“He also expressed concerns regarding the Chinese government’s interference in Tibetan Buddhists’ freedom to organise and practise their religion,” she said.

Beijing sent troops into remote, mountainous Tibet in 1950 in what it officially terms a peaceful liberation and has ruled there with an iron fist ever since.

The Dalai Lama fled to India in early 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, and Beijing still brands him a dangerous separatist. China says its leaders have the right to approve his successor, as a legacy from China’s emperors.

But the 83-year-old Nobel peace laureate monk, who lives in exile in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamshala, has said that his incarnation could be found in India after he dies, and that any other successor named by China would not be respected.

Tibetan tradition holds that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated in the body of a child on his death.

Tibet’s Communist Party secretary, Wu Yingjie, told Branstad how China had made “huge achievements” in “guaranteeing according to law” religious freedom and traditional culture in Tibet, the official Tibet Daily newspaper said late on Saturday.

Wu added that he “sincerely welcomed more American friends to visit” the region.

China’s Foreign Ministry said last week that China hoped the ambassador would not take any “prejudices” with him on the trip.

In December, China criticised the United States for passing the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act, which seeks to promote access to Tibet for U.S. diplomats and other officials, journalists and other citizens by denying U.S. entry for Chinese officials deemed responsible for restricting access to Tibet.

The U.S. government is required to begin denying visas by the end of this year.

Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Nick Macfie

Theresa May Broke Britain

Her legacy is a mangled party in a mangled Parliament in a badly mangled country.

Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement outside 10 Downing Street on May 24, 2019 in London, England. LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES

BY ALEX MASSIE

| MAY 24, 2019, 11:04 AM
 made Theresa May, and Brexit broke her, too. Her ascent to power depended on Brexit and was the making of her baked-in ruin. She was an accidental prime minister who leaves office a calamitous one. A historic failure whose time in office will not be recalled with any fondness, even by those closest to her.

Her resignation speech, delivered outside No. 10 Downing St. Friday morning, was a tearful moment during which she attempted to define herself as the victim of circumstances beyond her control. She had done her best, she said, but she had failed. She had sought a Brexit compromise that would deliver on her promises but had been let down by her parliamentary opponents—many of whom are in her own party—for whom compromise is a synonym for defeat.

Even if there were some truth to this, it still represented an unacceptable rewriting of immediate history. To be prime minister is to lead; to lead is to listen and to inspire; to lead and to inspire is to deliver. May failed on all counts. She leaves office denied even the customary consolations of minor accomplishment that traditionally soften the blow of departure. She had one job, and she failed to do it.

That task was, as she so often put it herself, to honor the result of Britain’s referendum on membership of the European Union. Though May voted to remain in the union, she did so without enthusiasm, playing only a negligible role during the referendum campaign itself. Unlike her rivals for the top job—notably Boris Johnson, who, in a piquant irony, is now best-placed to succeed her—May was a blank screen onto which Conservative members of Parliament could project their own ideas of what a Brexit prime minister should be. Her reserve, her lack of a formidable base in the party, her fundamentally unknowable character were redefined as positive attributes: If she had few dedicated followers, she had few inveterate enemies either.

She wanted to be more than the Brexit prime minister. Indeed, her first speech as premier barely mentioned the issue that would dominate—and overwhelm—her time in office. In it, May pledged to be a prime minister for hard-pressed families who were “just managing.”

“When we take the big calls,” she vowed, “we’ll think not of the powerful but you. When we pass new laws, we’ll listen not to the mighty but you. … When it comes to opportunity, we won’t entrench the advantages of the fortunate few. We will do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you.” A government for strivers, not the happy few; a government of blue-collar, reforming conservatism that recognized that the Brexit vote was not just an instruction to leave the EU but also the greatest protest vote British politics had seen since World War II.

Those words and promises, however fine they were, now seem pitifully irrelevant. Brexit consumed May’s government to the exclusion of almost everything else. Even if she were dealt a poor hand, she still played it poorly. It was May who decided to invoke Article 50 and begin the formal process of leaving the EU before the United Kingdom was ready to do so or even had any clear idea as to its objectives. It was May who determined the true meaning of Brexit, drawing so-called red lines from which she would not be shifted but that, instead, imprisoned her in a maze from which there was no exit.

Chief among these was the prime minister’s insistence that leaving the EU meant ending the free movement of people, one of the core foundational principles of the modern European Union. At the same time, May strove to strike a Brexit deal that minimized the economic fallout that would inevitably follow from leaving the EU’s single market. Britain would seek to maintain as many of the things it liked about the EU while resigning its membership of the European club. It required little imagination to see this was an approach unlikely to be looked at favorably in Brussels.

Complicating matters, May’s government lacked parliamentary muscle. She inherited a small majority from David Cameron and, despite having previously ruled out an early election, decided that a fresh start, and a renewed mandate, was necessary. The general election she called in the late spring of 2017 proved a disaster. The Conservatives lost their majority and, with it, May’s ability to control the Brexit process. She was now at the mercy of her own backbenchers, many of whom increasingly looked on her proposals as a betrayal of the true meaning of Brexit.

By now May was in an impossible position. She lacked authority within her own party while also lacking the political imagination—and, perhaps, the emotional intelligence—required to win support from other parts of the House of Commons.

Meanwhile, the full, complex reality of Brexit was becoming ever more painfully apparent. The dream of a quick, win-win departure was revealed to be just that: a dream wholly divorced from reality. Nevertheless, the middle ground of British politics—in which some kind of Brexit compromise might be forged—was becoming smaller and smaller.

“Brexit means Brexit,” May said, as though this solved or clarified anything. She spent months arguing that “no deal is better than a bad deal” and then seemed surprised when many Tory MPs and even more Tory voters took her at her word. The withdrawal agreement she negotiated with the EU was, even its supporters admitted, a suboptimal bargain. That few better ones were available mattered little.

Three times May brought her deal to Parliament, and three times it was denied. Stubbornly, she refused to believe it was dead and as recently as this week still believed that, with some cosmetic modification, it could be brought back for a fourth time. The resoluteness and determination that was once seen as May’s strongest quality—her determination to do her duty, whatever the cost, as she saw it—now seemed delusional. The jig was up, the game over.

She leaves ruins in her wake. On Sunday, the votes for the elections to the European Parliament will be counted, and it seems certain that the Conservatives will suffer a historic defeat. It seems probable that the party will finish, at best, in fourth place. Leave-voting Tories will have deserted the party en masse, flocking to the revived standard carried by Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party; others, appalled by the party’s enthusiasm for the hardest of hard Brexits, will have voted for the pro-Remain Liberal Democrats.

The center of British politics has been hollowed out. Opinion polling reveals that “Leave” and “Remain” are now stronger identities than “Tory” or “Labour.” Die-hard Leavers consider May’s deal a betrayal that would leave Britain a “rule-taker” or a “vassal state,” condemned to following some EU rules and lacking the so-called independence promised by the referendum result. Die-hard Remainers, meanwhile, are more convinced than ever that Brexit is a historic mistake that must be overturned, no matter the cost. There is no compromise possible between these positions.

Now the future is murkier than ever. The Conservative Party owns Brexit and has been consumed by it. May’s legacy is a broken party in a broken Parliament in a badly broken country. Her party’s reputation for competence lies in tatters, and the only thing saving it at present is the public’s lack of enthusiasm for a Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn.

Theresa May discovered that the only thing worse than not doing Brexit was doing Brexit. She proved to be a sphinx without a riddle, and, despite her promises, she didn’t break the wheel—the wheel broke her.

 

Theresa May’s slips, u-turns and broken promises

By Georgina Lee-24 May 2019

It’s official: Theresa May will resign as Conservative leader on 7 June. Her time in office will forever be associated with Brexit. But the trials and tribulations of Mrs May’s premiership don’t end there.
Let’s take a look at some of her biggest slips, u-turns and broken promises.

The Windrush scandal

One of the biggest scandals to hit Mrs May’s premiership was actually a hangover from her time as home secretary.
In 2012, four years before entering Downing Street, she declared “the aim is to create here in Britain a really hostile environment for illegal migration”.
But it was this tough stance on immigration that many say laid the groundwork for the Windrush scandal, in which people who emigrated from the Caribbean in the 1960s on the understanding that they were British citizens suddenly found themselves at risk of deportation.
After the story was reported by Channel 4 News and others in the spring of 2018, the government announced new measures designed to help the “Windrush generation”.
In December, the National Audit Office found that the Home Office “is taking steps to put things right for the Caribbean community, but it has shown a surprising lack of urgency to identify other groups that may have been affected”.

Child refugees

In 2016, Mrs May’s government agreed to take in 480 unaccompanied child refugees after a campaign by Labour peer Lord Dubs, who had initially lobbied for 3,000 to be brought to Britain.
But in November 2018, it was revealed that just 20 children had been resettled in the UK under the scheme. In the 30 months to November 2018, a total of 240 unaccompanied child refugees were admitted.
In December, the government announced it would scrap the cut-off dateit had initially placed on eligibility, a move welcomed by campaigners.

The 2017 General Election

Mrs May categorically ruled out holding an early election on at least four occasions after she became prime minister in the summer of 2016. That is, until 18 April 2017 when she asked the public to give her a parliamentary mandate to negotiate Brexit by… calling an early election.
She went into the campaign with a shaky majority of just 17 MPs, but came back to Number 10 without any majority at all.

The ‘Dementia Tax’

The Conservative manifesto contained what was billed as a set of sensible reforms to the ailing social care system — but quickly gained the unfortunate moniker, the “Dementia Tax”.
Just four days after announcing the proposal, Mrs May was forced to issue a “clarifying statement”. Despite her claims that “nothing has changed”, the effect was to backtrack on the now-toxic policy.

O-turns on pensions and winter fuel payments

In a 360-degree spin that Kylie Minogue would be proud of, Mrs May decided to abandon the party’s prior commitment to protect pensions through the “triple lock” at the last election, only to re-introduce the policy a month later.
It’s a similar story with winter fuel payments. In May 2017, the government said it would begin means-testing the benefit (reversing a 2015 manifesto commitment). By June, those plans were scrapped.

Free school lunches back on the table

In another blow for her manifesto, Mrs May was forced to axe controversial plans to replace free school meals with breakfasts for families on low incomes – just weeks after the election.

Do you believe in magic… money trees?

Throughout the 2017 campaign, Mrs May and her colleagues were keen to point out that “there’s no magic money tree” to fund the public sector.
But when the party found itself without a majority in parliament, Mrs May struck a “confidence and supply” agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party to prop her up — pledging an extra £1.5 billion for Northern Ireland to secure the deal.

Winging it on Heathrow third runway

Theresa May’s own constituency of Maidenhead is just down the road from Heathrow. A since-deleted post from her website reveals her history of opposing the airport’s expansion.
In 2008, her constituency site said: “Theresa is firmly against plans to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport and is campaigning against it on behalf of Maidenhead residents.” The post quoted her saying: “The Government’s case for expanding Heathrow is flawed… I am clear that we must say no to a third runway at Heathrow.”
But in October 2016, the Conservative government led by Mrs May announced that it would endorse the verdict of the Airports Commission that a third runway should be built at Heathrow.
Her 2017 manifesto contained a commitment to continue with the project, and in June 2018 she issued a three-line whip to Conservative MPs to vote for the policy.

Conservative rulebook didn’t mention antisemitism… until it did

Mrs May told parliament in July 2018 that the Conservatives had adopted the full definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance “and all its annexes” – which had proved a sticking point on the Labour benches.
But FactCheck revealed at the time that the Conservative party rulebook didn’t contain a single mention of the term “antisemitism”.
Just hours after we published our article, we noticed that the online version of the Conservative party code of conduct had been updated to include an extra line on antisemitism and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Workers on boards

In the post-referendum blur of 2016, Mrs May pledged: “If I’m prime minister … we’re going to have not just consumers represented on company boards, but workers as well.” But less than a year later, it became clear that her government had dropped the plans.

Fiscal rules, okay?

In autumn 2016 and summer 2017, Theresa May’s government committed to balance the public finances by the mid-2020s. But in 2018, the government set out a budget that means they’ll miss the target by four years, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Brexit

No audit of Mrs May’s premiership would be complete without a look at her handling of Brexit. From her ever-fading red lines to the very question of whether we should leave the EU at all,she’s been no stranger to a change of heart on the topic. Read more about the details here.

India Reposes Faith On One Man With Huge Expectations

While India has multiple problems faced by the people in economic and social sphere, the utmost desire of the people is to see a corruption free India.

 

by N.S.Venkataraman-May 24 at 1:40 AM 

 

2019 Parliamentary election in India is unique ,since it has not been a contest between political parties but a contest between one man and several others who are pledged haters of the single man. People reposed faith on the one man and gave him a second term as Prime Minister of India.

 

It is now necessary to view this scenario in an objective and dispassionate manner, without becoming emotional or carrying the love or hate for the one man to unreasonable level.

 

 

During the last five years of Mr. Modi’s Prime Ministership, even his worst adversary was not daring enough to doubt or question his personal integrity and discipline and the capability to do hard work to fulfill his responsibility.Ofcoure, some attempted to do so during the election campaign, which boomeranged. This quality was that which impressed majority of the voters, who preferred him over anyone else.

 

While India has multiple problems faced by the people in economic and social sphere, the utmost desire of the people is to see a corruption free India.

 

Corruption has become so deep rooted in government machinery, public life , educational institutions , health sector and even in religious centres , apart from gradually creeping into the personal life of individuals. Certainly, corruption has become the order of the day. Widespread corruption is a vicious cycle and it appears that no one can escape from it. When things deteriorate to such an extent that no one can get anything done without paying bribe money, then it becomes necessary to earn bribe money to pay the bribe demand.

 

Even the poorest of the poor people often find that they have to pay bribe to change the residential address in the ration card or get “free treatment” provided in the government hospitals. They need money for all these unsavoury demands. This is, perhaps, why people take bribe money from political parties to vote for them or take money to attend meetings organized by political parties or other agencies. In these circumstances, who can blame whom for the corrupt conditions?

 

People are disgusted with the corrupt conditions in the society and want a Prime Minister who would eradicate corruption unmindful of the consequences. To meet such expectations of the people to root out corruption, the Prime Minister has to be a man with highest level of personal integrity and commitment to the cause of rooting out corruption.

 

In the five years of his Prime Ministership, Mr. Modi ensured that none of his ministers would indulge in corrupt practices. Mr. Modi clearly understood that to effectively root out the corruption, transparency in administration is vital and systemic changes are needed. There is no short cut.

 

With this sole objective, he initiated several proactive measures, to ensure that corruption would become a difficult and painful exercise. While Mr. Modi has not entirely succeeded, the majority of the people believe that he has made earnest attempts and his attempts are work in progress.

 

It is true that many known corrupt persons are roaming free in public life and Mr. Modi has not been able to punish them and put them in jail, as the judiciary proceedings are time consuming and part of investigating machinery itself are suspected to be having corrupt elements and there are doubts even about the integrity of a few judges, particularly at the lower level of judiciary.

 

How to fight corruption in such circumstances ? This is the challenge before Mr. Modi today and there are huge expectations from the people that he would do the needful, with high level of determination and by waging an unbending fight against the corrupt elements everywhere.

 

During election campaign, extremely abusive language was used by several opposition leaders against Mr. Modi and the media was not entirely neutral and objective in viewing the developments. Several unsubstantiated allegations were made in section of media to tarnish the image of Mr. Modi.

 

Opposition leaders understood that Mr. Modi’s highest strength is his personal integrity. Perhaps, they thought that without demolishing this image of Mr. Modi amongst the people, they cannot defeat Mr. Modi. This is why Mr. Modi was called a thief , which must have deeply hurt Mr. Modi in his mind.. Of course, Mr. Modi reacted with dignity, even though in the heat of the election campaign, he has to use strong language to rebuke the critical comments.

 

It is a great tribute to the maturity of Indian voters, 30% of whom belong to lower income group and do not have access to high quality education, that they could see the situation in the proper perspective and decide that corruption free India is the urgently needed and desirable goal for the country.

 

Mr. Modi would surely know this and he has to move on with great speed to meet the expectations of the people. Any strong anti corruption move by Mr. Modi will be resisted by vested interests and he should face and tackle such conditions by constantly interacting with the people and explaining his policies.

 

It is rumoured all over India that the second term as Prime Minister would be the final term for Mr. Modi and he would not seek reelection again. Those who understand the man think it would be so. Mr. Modi has nothing to lose by waging a strong anti corruption drive, where deep fear would be created in the mind of corrupt people that they cannot escape punishment for their misdeeds. The extent of success of Mr. Modi has to be reflected by the extent of fear created in the mind of the corrupt elements to whichever party or profession that they belong to.

 

People of India fervently hope and believe that Mr. Modi would rise upto the need and expectations of the country men to eradicate corruption and this hope is the root cause for his massive victory in the 2019 parliamentary election.

India’s Modi and Pakistan PM highlight need for ‘peace,’ after vote

India Prime Minister Narendra Modi gestures as he speaks on stage during his victory speech at the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) headquarters after winning India's general election, in New Delhi on May 23, 2019. Source: Prakash Singh/AFP

@AsCorrespondent-May 24 at 1:26 AM 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani rival Imran Khan sent messages highlighting the need for “peace” Thursday after Modi’s hawkish party won a new term in power.

While the nuclear-armed rivals launched cross-border air strikes at each other barely three months ago, some analysts say the return of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a new landslide could help peace prospects.

Khan congratulated Modi on the win by the BJP, which has long taken a strong anti-Pakistan stance.

SEE ALSO: Narendra Modi’s performance on the Indian economy – five key policies assessed

“Congratulate Prime Minister Modi on the electoral victory of BJP and allies. Look forward to working with him for peace, progress and prosperity in South Asia,” Khan tweeted.

“Thank you PM @ImranKhanPTI. I warmly express my gratitude for your good wishes. I have always given primacy to peace and development in our region,” Modi responded, also on Twitter.

The messages came just hours after Pakistan said it had tested a surface-to-surface ballistic missile capable of carrying conventional and nuclear warheads.

India on Wednesday staged a new test of its BrahMos missile, the world’s fastest cruise missile.

In February, India launched an air strike inside Pakistan accusing its neighbour of harbouring a group that staged a suicide bomb attack on Indian troops in Kashmir.

Pakistan launched its own raid the next day amid fears of a war, but tensions have calmed since.

Muslim Pakistan had watched Modi’s campaign warily, frequently accusing him of using events in the disputed Kashmir region as a ploy to gain votes.

In April, however, Khan said a Modi win could help settle the Kashmir showdown and his government has repeatedly stated it is open to dialogue with the rival.

Pakistanis consider Modi a hardliner, analysts say, but welcomed his win even so — predicting it could lead to improved relations.

“The expectation in Pakistan is that there will be an incremental improvement in Pakistan-India relations as Modi’s attitude would be more relaxed,” retired Pakistani general Talat Masood told AFP.

“He is not going to get anything by continuing with the previous policy, because that will not help him at the international level and at the regional level.”

SEE ALSO: India polls 2019: How will the world’s biggest democracy vote?

Tensions with Pakistan may have boosted his campaign, but with a fresh mandate “you have to deliver”, Masood continued.

“If you want to focus on the economy, if you want to focus on the regional co-operation and (for) a better image internationally, it is important to have good regional relations with neighbours,” he said.

The Kashmir fuse continues to burn, however. Pakistani and Indian forces regularly fire over the Line of Control — the de-facto border dividing Kashmir — leaving civilian dead on both sides.

Pakistan has restricted large swathes of airspace near its eastern border with India since the February clashes, effectively closing off major international flight routes in and out of Islamabad and Lahore while also disrupting Indian flights headed west.

© Agence France-Presse

World's rivers 'awash with dangerous levels of antibiotics'

Largest global study finds the drugs in two-thirds of test sites in 72 countries

Of the European rivers tested, the Danube had the highest level of antibiotic pollution. Photograph: Nick Ledger/Getty Images/AWL Images RM

Natasha Gilbert-Mon 27 May 2019 00.01 BST

Hundreds of rivers around the world from the Thames to the Tigris are awash with dangerously high levels of antibiotics, the largest global study on the subject has found.

Antibiotic pollution is one of the key routes by which bacteria are able develop resistance to the life-saving medicines, rendering them ineffective for human use. “A lot of the resistance genes we see in human pathogens originated from environmental bacteria,” said Prof William Gaze, a microbial ecologist at the University of Exeter who studies antimicrobial resistance but was not involved in the study.

The rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a global health emergency that could kill 10 million people by 2050, the UN said last month.

The drugs find their way into rivers and soil via human and animal waste and leaks from wastewater treatment plants and drug manufacturing facilities. “It’s quite scary and depressing. We could have large parts of the environment that have got antibiotics at levels high enough to affect resistance,” said Alistair Boxall, an environmental scientist at the University of York, who co-led the study.

The research, presented on Monday at a conference in Helsinki, shows that some of the world’s best-known rivers, including the Thames, are contaminated with antibiotics classified as critically important for the treatment of serious infections. In many cases they were detected at unsafe levels, meaning resistance is much more likely to develop and spread.

Samples taken from the Danube in Austria contained seven antibiotics including clarithromycin, used to treat respiratory tract infections such as pneumonia and bronchitis, at nearly four times the level considered safe.

The Danube, Europe’s second-largest river, was the continent’s most polluted. Eight per cent of the sites tested in Europe were above safe limits.

The Thames, generally regarded as one of Europe’s cleanest rivers, was contaminated, along with some of its tributaries, by a mixture of five antibiotics. One site on the river and three on its tributaries were polluted above safe levels. Ciprofloxacin, which treats infections of the skin and urinary tract, peaked at more than three times safe levels.

Even rivers contaminated with low levels of antibiotics are a threat, Gaze said. “Even the low concentrations seen in Europe can drive the evolution of resistance and increase the likelihood that resistance genes transfer to human pathogens,” he says.

The researchers tested 711 sites in 72 countries and found antibiotics in 65% of them. In 111 of the sites, the concentrations of antibiotics exceeded safe levels, with the worst cases more than 300 times over the safe limit.

Lower-income countries generally had higher antibiotic concentrations in rivers, with locations in Africa and Asia performing worst. They peaked in Bangladesh, where metronidazole, used to treat vaginal infections, was found at more than 300 times the safe level. The residues were detected near a wastewater treatment facility, which in lower-income countries often lack the technology to remove the drugs.

Inappropriate disposal of sewage and waste dumped straight into rivers, as was witnessed at a site in Kenya, also resulted in high antibiotic concentrations of up to 100 times safe levels.

“Improving the safe management of health and hygiene services in low-income countries is critical in the fight against antimicrobial resistance,” said Helen Hamilton, health and hygiene analyst at the UK-based charity Water Aid.

The research team is now planning to assess the environmental impacts of antibiotic pollution on wildlife including fish, invertebrates and algae. They expect severe effects. The drug levels in some Kenyan rivers were so high that no fish could survive. “There was a total population crash,” Boxall said.

Will Facebook’s new payments system transform businesses?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg migh soon launch a payments system. Source: John Thys / AFP
EVERYONE has access to Facebook and its portfolio of products in one form or another.

By Tech Wire Asia | 24 May, 2019

According to BBC News, the social media giant is planning on setting up a digital payments system and possibly using its own crypto-currency to make it seamless and futureproof.

HERE’S HOW FACEBOOK IS GROOMING THE NEXT GENERATION OF BUSINESSES

Soumik Roy | 11 March, 2019

The media outlet points out that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been meeting with Bank of England Governor Mark Carney about its new service and has sought advice from the US Treasury about it as well.

BBC also claims that Facebook is also in talks with Western Union and other global money transfer firms to augment their services upon launch.

Internally, the crypto-currency is referred to as GlobalCoin and is expected to make a debut in the first quarter of 2020 — although an official announcement should come in later this year.

How Facebook’s own payment system will benefit businesses

Living in a digital world where e-commerce is constantly growing and real-world transactions become digital-first, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how Facebook’s own payment system will help businesses while also protecting customers.

WhatsApp, with more than 1.5 billion monthly active users in nearly 110 countries, the messaging app is usually the first choice of people when it comes to communicating — in the Asia Pacific and the rest of the world.

Enabling payments on WhatsApp, individual to individual and individual to business, will open up new avenues for the company while also giving additional mileage to financial inclusion programs championed by many governments across Asia.

HOW FACEBOOK IS TRANSFORMING ENTERPRISE-LEVEL COMMUNICATIONS

Soumik Roy | 4 December, 2018

Next, Instagram’s new Checkout feature, open to some big brands right now, allows customers to buy right from Instagram — without leaving the platform.

In the future, this feature could be augmented by the company’s own payment services, providing customers with an added layer of protection as Checkout becomes available to smaller, lesser known brands that might not all be keen on doing right by the customer.

Facebook needs the right infrastructure to get started

The world of financial services is complicated, especially when you bring cross-border payments into the picture.

Using crypto-currencies might make operating such a network easy but Facebook will still need to get approvals from all sorts of government organizations and regulatory bodies before its payments system can be launched.

Further, the company will need to ensure that services are set up in a way that there is maximum uptime irrespective of demand — which the company has already demonstrated competence at. However, with user’s money involved, the stakes will be higher.

FACEBOOK SAYS COMMUNICATION IS KEY TO BUSINESS GROWTH

Soumik Roy | 28 December, 2018

Finally, when users begin engaging with Facebook’s payments system, they’ll need to really get tough on data privacy and security.

The company has promised to make this a primary focus in coming months and there is evidence that CEO Zuckerberg is making good on that promise but financial services is a whole new ballgame and Facebook must be well prepared for that.

"Literature provides shelter. That's why we need it" 

May 25, 2019, 6:54 pm

Novelist and fiery political-activist-writer Arundhati Roy (b. 1960) was invited by PEN America to deliver the 2019 Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture on 12 May 2019. That surely is a great honour. (PEN International is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921, to promote literature and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere).

A further honour is that she is one of only two South Asian writers who have won the prestigious Man Booker Prize; she in 1997 for The God of Small Things and Aravind Adiga in 2008 for his novel The White Tiger. Michael Ondaatje, Salman Rushdie, and Kiran Desai are South Asian by birth but Canadian, British and American by migration. Ondaatje co-won the Booker in 1992 for his English Patient and the greater kudos of winning the Golden Booker for the best book in two decades. Rushdie from Mumbai was the winner in 1981 for Midnight’s Children, and Desai in 2006 for her Inheritance of Loss.

Being a staunch admirer of Arundhati Roy I wish to quote from a very long article in The Guardian of Monday May 13 reporting on her PEN address. I focus on two points: her contention that was her title of her lecture and my article title too: ‘Literature provides shelter. That's why we need it’; and her writing. She started her address thus: "What better time than this to think together about a place for literature, at this moment when an era that we think we understand – at least vaguely, if not well – is coming to a close."

Shelter, solace and

refuge

Roy said: "I mention this because it taught me that the place for literature is built by writers and readers. It’s a fragile place in some ways, but an indestructible one. When it’s broken, we rebuild it. Because we need shelter. I very much like the idea of literature that is needed. Literature that provides shelter. Shelter of all kinds."

True or exaggerated? Acceptable or unacceptable to us both writers and readers or to any person? Mulling over the statement we are bound to agree with her. Perhaps, we were more familiar with the idea of literature providing an escape – a respite from personal and national problems and crises. Many’s the time when emotions overpowered me and I took a book, novel mostly, and got so absorbed in it that the mental turmoil subsided and at the end I wondered what had bothered me in the first place. The conflict within or with another, mostly the husband then, was cut down to size and insignificance.

Danger to writers,

particularly journalists

in our part of the world

Commenting on the dangers writers face, Roy said: "Reporters Without Borders say that India is the fifth most dangerous place for journalists in the world, ranked just above Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Mexico. Here I must pause to thank PEN for the work it does to protect writers and journalists who have been imprisoned, prosecuted, censored and worse. From one day to the next, it could be any one of us that is in the line of fire. To know that there is an organization looking out for us is a consolation." Googling, I got this in Writers Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index. Norway is the most free while Sri Lanka is ranked 126 of 180 countries listed, with North Korea 179. Need we go any further to realize the depth of Sri Lanka’s lack of safety for journalists when the murder of Lasantha W and so called disappearance of Ekneligoda are as yet unsolved?

Fiction vs non-fiction

It would not be incorrect to say that Arundhati Roy burst into the international literary scene with her first novel which won her the most prestigious literary prize – the Man Booker. Then she got a bit lazy, we suspect, and moved to protesting against this and that issue, starting perhaps with a mass protest against the construction of the Damodar Dam displacing thousands of poor villagers. This was of the Damodar Valley Project and the dam built in Jharkhand below Gaya to the west of Kolkata. From there she moved to other contentious issues, speaking in public, publishing articles and pamphlets until she got fired up in protest over the Kashmir problem and what toll it was taking on the poor Hindus and Muslims in the Indian and Pakistani sections of the Valley.

"I have never felt that my fiction and nonfiction were warring factions battling for suzerainty. They aren’t the same certainly, but trying to pin down the difference between them is actually harder than I imagined. Fact and fiction are not converse. One is not necessarily truer than the other, more factual than the other, or more real than the other. Or even, in my case, more widely read than the other. All I can say is that I feel the difference in my body when I’m writing. I received from John Berger a beautiful handwritten letter; from a writer who had been my hero for years: ‘Your fiction and nonfiction—they walk you around the world like your two legs.’ That settled it for me."

She was warned about her writing being considered incendiary; that she would get it! But she retorts in her talk at PEN. "Whatever the case that was being built against me was, it didn’t – or at least hasn’t yet – come to fruition. I’m still here, standing on my two writing legs, speaking to you. India’s prisons are packed tight with political prisoners—most of them accused of being either Maoist or Islamist terrorists … or anyone who disagrees with government policy. In the latest batch of pre-election arrests, teachers, lawyers, activists, and writers have been jailed, charged with plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Modi. The plot is so ludicrous that a six-year-old could have improved on it. The fascists need to take some good fiction-writing courses."

"The End of Imagination" was the first of what would turn out to be 20 years of writing nonfiction essays. They were years during which India was changing at lightning speed. For each essay, I searched for a form, for language, for structure and narrative. Could I write as compellingly about irrigation as I could about love and loss and childhood? About the salinization of soil? About drainage? Dams? Crops? About structural adjustment and privatization? About the unit cost of electricity? About things that affect ordinary peoples’ lives? Not as reportage, but as a form of storytelling? Was it possible to turn these topics into literature? Literature for everybody—including for people who couldn’t read and write, but who had taught me how to think, and could be read to?

"Almost every essay got me into enough trouble to make me promise myself that I wouldn’t write another. But inevitably, situations arose in which the effort of keeping quiet set up such a noise in my head, such an ache in my blood, that I succumbed, and wrote. Last year when my publishers suggested they be collected into a single volume, I was shocked to see that the collection, My Seditious Heart, is a thousand pages long."

Roy’s two novels

I give here excerpts of what she spoke on her two novels to the PEN audience:

"The God of Small Things, (1997) was the result of a search for a language and a form to describe the world I had grown up in, to myself and to people I loved, some of whom were entirely unfamiliar with Kerala. I had studied architecture, written screenplays, and now I wanted to write a novel. The setting of the book—the old house on the hill in Ayemenem, my grandmother’s pickle factory that I grew up in, the Meenachal river—all of it gritty reality to me, was exotic and magical to many western critics.

"Back home in Kerala, the reception was pretty unmagical. The Communist party of India (Marxist), which had ruled Kerala on and off since 1959, was upset with what it considered a critique of the party. I was quickly labeled anti-communist, a crying-talking-sleeping-walking Imperialist Plot. I had been critical, it is true. The transgressive relationship in the novel between Ammu (a Syrian Christian woman) and Velutha (a Dalit man) was viewed with consternation. The consternation had as much to do with the novel’s politics of caste as it did with gender."

Roy even hints at an incestuous relationship at the very end between brother and sister.

Then after twenty years of writing non-fiction and traveling into the heart of rebellions, fiction returned to her. She said: "It became clear that only a novel would be able to contain the universe that was building in me, spinning up from the landscapes I had wandered through, and composing itself into a story-universe. I knew it would be unapologetically complicated, unapologetically political, and unapologetically intimate. I knew that if The God of Small Things was about home, about a family with a broken heart in its midst, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness would begin after the roof had blown off the home, and the broken heart had shattered and distributed its shards in war-torn valleys and city streets. It would be a novel, but the story-universe would refuse all forms of domestication and conventions about what a novel could and could not be. A little frightened, a little intimidated, plenty excited. It would be a novel that would say what cannot otherwise be said. Particularly about Kashmir, where only fiction can be true because the truth cannot be told. In India, it is not possible to speak of Kashmir with any degree of honesty without risking bodily harm…. For a writer, Kashmir holds great lessons about the human substance. About power, powerlessness, treachery, loyalty, love, humor, faith… What happens to people who live under a military occupation for decades? What are the negotiations that take place when the very air is seeded with terror? What happens to language?"

She ended her talk, heartily applauded we are certain as she speaks well and is very attractive to look at, with another truism: "Novels can bring their authors to the brink of madness. Novels can shelter their authors, too."

Yes, we who write agree with her but the solace and comfort and feeling of achievement are much greater and lasting than the temporary ‘madness’ we feel when actually creating literature.

Support for abortion rights grows as some U.S. states curb access: Reuters/Ipsos poll

Hundreds of women protest on the steps of the Old Courthouse during a Stop the Abortion Ban Bill Day of Action in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., May 21, 2019. REUTERS/Lawrence Bryant

Maria Caspani-MAY 26, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Americans have become more supportive of abortion rights over the past year, even as a wave of Republican-controlled state governments have imposed new restrictions, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday.

The poll found that 58% of American adults said abortion should be legal in most or all cases, up from 50% who said that in a similar poll that ran in July 2018.

While support broke down along partisan lines, passions were higher among registered Democrats, with 81% saying abortion should be legal in most or all cases, while 55% of registered Republicans said it should be illegal in most or all cases.

This year, eight Republican-led states have passed new restrictions on abortion, measures that activists said are aimed at provoking the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.

Anti-abortion campaigners are counting on the new 5-4 conservative majority on the court, following two appointments by Republican President Donald Trump, to turn the balance in their favor.

A wide majority of Americans disagree with parts of the year’s most sweeping anti-abortion measure:

Alabama’s law banning abortion in all cases, including for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, with only a narrow exception for women whose lives are danger.

Eighty percent of respondents told Reuters/Ipsos they support abortion in cases of rape or incest.
Other states, including Ohio and Georgia, have banned abortions absent a medical emergency after six weeks of pregnancy or after the fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can occur before a woman realizes she is pregnant.

Public opinion is almost evenly split on whether abortion should be legal after a heartbeat is detected, the poll showed. 

The Reuters/Ipsos poll also found that 85% of Americans are in favor of abortion when the mother’s life is in danger and 59% said abortion should be legal when there is evidence that the baby is physically or mentally impaired. 

Fifty-eight percent of U.S. adults said abortion should not be legal when the fetus is older than 20 weeks, while 30% said it should be allowed.

“I think abortion is a very difficult, horrible thing, but I don’t think the government has any say in whether you should be able to do it - that’s a very personal thing,” said poll respondent Steven Hoelke, 69, a Republican retired aerospace engineer from Claremont, California. “It’s tough and I don’t think it can be dictated from above.”

2020 RALLYING CRY?

Trump’s opposition to abortion has stirred support in his base, especially among many religious voters. The two dozen Democrats vying to challenge him have loudly supported abortion rights.

But the poll also found most voters were not looking for candidates whose primary focus is abortion: Just 9% of registered Republicans said they would prefer to vote for a candidate whose main focus is banning abortion, while 11% of registered Democrats preferred one whose primary focus would be protecting abortion rights.

Slideshow (4 Images)

U.S. voters usually list healthcare and the economy as the top issues going into an election.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English throughout the United States on May 22-23. It gathered responses from 1,008 people and has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 6 percentage points.

Reporting by Maria Caspani; editing by Scott Malone and David Gregorio

Abortion bans have some women preparing for the worst. It involves ‘auntie networks.’

A sign at an abortion-rights rally in Miami on Thursday. (Lynne Sladky/AP)

By Monica Hesse-May 26 at 7:00 AM

 

The first breadcrumb leading me to an Auntie Network landed in my path last week, in the form of a Facebook post written by a friend of a friend:

“Hey! People with uteri in other states! If you need to visit your friend Cindy in Chicago, you just PM me and ask for my phone number. I will be so excited to TALK and HANG OUT with you. No judgment. No questions.”

Cindy went on to describe this theoretical Illinois vacation which, as became clear when reading between the lines, was not a vacation at all. It was an offer to reach across state borders, into the jurisdictions that are passing severe reproductive legislation, and help desperate pregnant people acquire abortions.

Some of us with dark imaginations have spent lifetimes imagining theoretical apocalypses. How would we react? Would we be the neighbors who would open our homes, share our bottled water and ramen? What would all of this look like?

A particular kind of dystopia has arrived, and we’re beginning to see its fuzzy outlines. It would involve a whisper network on social media. It would entail announcing “Off to go see Navy Pier!” and then going instead to an abortion clinic. Thousands of women would have to learn — or remember — how this all worked before 1973, when desperate women also had occasion to visit their cousins, old friends, and aunties.

The message I saw was one of hundreds that include the label “Auntie Network” — or “Jane Collective,” a reference to the underground web of support in the pre-Roe era. (Some initially used “New Underground Railroad,” which others quickly called out as tone-deaf and inappropriate.) Many messages were patterned off an early post written by a New Yorker named Lynnie, who has since set up a Facebook group. More than 2,000 would-be volunteers have joined; Lynnie wrote that she’s hearing from more every day. Come and see the Lincoln Memorial, the Aunties offer. Come visit the Mall of America. Have you been to the Finger Lakes recently?

Some invitations are written hyper-cautiously, as if in anticipation of a backlash. Attorneys have raised concerns that the new measures could penalize those who seek abortions across state lines. And so we see some aunties suggest that itineraries could include touristy selfies in front of landmarks. “Proof” that the trip was merely a vacation.

Of course, in many parts of the country, travel and secrecy have always been a part of obtaining an abortion: 90 percent of counties don’t have any abortion providers. Many nonprofit groups already have long-standing systems in place to help abortion-seekers get past the logistical and monetary barriers. Yamani Hernandez, executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, worries that the ad hoc creation of Jane collectives could dilute resources from what groups like hers are already doing. “This is a time to build our ranks — not attempt to create new structures,” Hernandez wrote.

What struck me about postings written by Janes and Aunties — and it’s mostly Aunties, though there are a few Uncles, too — is that they don’t read as if they’re attempting to create new structures. They read as if they’re attempting to create new communities. There’s an intimacy to these posts: promises of foldout sofas, herbal tea, fully-stocked DVD collections.

“I’d be happy to mail you a birthday card,” wrote one helper from Iowa. The birthday card could contain birth control, the writer explained, or perhaps a Plan B pill or a pregnancy test. “My home is always welcom[ing],” the post read. “My hand is always there to be held.”

The idea of entrusting your safety and personal information to a random stranger from Iowa seems impractical if not dangerous — again, there are vetted, established abortion rights organizations for this purpose. And relying on Facebook means you’re mostly reaching people in your own network. There’s a limit to the efficacy.

But to me, the Iowa offer communicates more than logistical solutions. The implied message is that this offer of help is not merely transactional. The Iowan on the other side of the exchange does not believe you are a uterine problem to be solved, but rather a human to be cared for.

As legislatures in states like Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi place their concerns solely on the well-being of embryos and fetuses, the posts from Janes and Aunties are reminders that the humans carrying these pregnancies matter as well.

The other thing that struck me, in scrolling through post after post from Janes and Aunties, is how quickly everything coalesced. How quickly women leaped to action in the face of this impending dystopia. Within days, there were new codified hashtags, terms and protocols. Dormant activists creaked back into gear, joining the ones who’d never gone off duty. There was a sense that there was an inevitability to all of this, that rights are always precarious.

A reader emailed earlier this week — one who didn’t know that Auntie Networks were underway, or that the National Network of Abortion Funds had been doing this work for years. She was 82, she said. She was infirm and couldn’t get out much. But she’d been following the news, and wondering whether women seeking abortions were going to need safe houses. And if they were, she wanted to volunteer her own. Women from Georgia or Alabama could come and stay with her.

She was in her 30s when Roe v. Wade came before the Supreme Court. She had never grown complacent, she said. She’d seen it all before, and she’d steeled herself to see it again.

Monica Hesse is a columnist writing about gender and its impact on society. For more visit wapo.st/hesse.

Surgeons warn of serious hand injuries from dog leads and collars

Jillian Tisdale needed surgery to her fingers after a 'degloving' injury

24 May 2019

Surgeons are warning dog owners not to wrap leads around their fingers or wrist because of the dangers of serious hand injury.

They say thousands of people could be at risk from lacerations, friction burns, fractures and ligament injuries.

There were 30 serious hand injuries caused by dog leads last year in Cornwall alone, the British Society for Surgery of the Hand said.

One of those was to Jillian Tisdale, 65, who has two retrievers.

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE OF FINGER INJURY FOLLOWS BELOW

'Like a filleting knife'

She had just finished walking one of her dogs when it became distracted by another dog and ran off excitedly on the lead.

The lead ended up wrapped tightly around Jillian's middle fingers on her right hand, causing severe damage, including the "degloving" of her finger - when the skin and some of the soft tissue are ripped off.

She said the retractable lead she used acted like a "filleting knife", causing "terrible pain".

She also suffered severe cuts and dislocated her index finger, after the incident several months ago.
Jillian needed surgery to remove the top part of her middle finger and a skin graft. She has been left with a shorter middle finger, as a result.

"I still can't form a proper fist yet and I'm continuing to do exercises to strengthen my hand," she says.

Jillian's two dogs are retrievers

But she said she was planning to return to her hobbies of diving, mountain climbing, and even dog-walking, soon.

Jillian was treated by consultant surgeon Rebecca Dunlop, from Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, who also collected the data on hand injuries from dog leads.

She said she had noticed an increase in this type of "devastating" injury in recent years, which can need long-term treatment and means the fingers often do not return to normal.

Mrs Dunlop said: "Having seen many serious injuries caused by dog leads and collars, I want dog lovers to be aware of the simple steps they can take to avoid severe damage to their hand."

She said hand injuries could also be very costly "through time off work and medical costs".
To avoid injury, dog owners should:

• avoid hooking fingers under a dog's collar
• not wind the lead - particularly retractable ones - around their hand or fingers
• only use retractable leads in open spaces because they can wrap dangerously around legs, trees and furniture
• keep larger dogs on a shorter lead to avoid them building up speed that can cause a wrenching force

Jillian now has full use of her hand, but a slightly shorter middle finger - this is the index finger pictured