The new policy, similar to those unveiled in recent months at Harvard University and Haverford College, comes after a tumultuous year at Penn.

The University of Pennsylvania announced Tuesday it will no longer make institutional statements in response to world events, except those that have “direct and significant bearing on University functions.”

The new policy, similar to those unveiled in recent months at Harvard University and Haverford College, comes after a tumultuous year at Penn that included the resignation of its president and a multiweek Gaza solidarity encampment that was taken down by police.

“It is not the role of the institution to render opinions — doing so risks suppressing the creativity and academic freedom of our faculty and students,” Penn administrators wrote in a statement emailed to the campus community. “The university will issue messages on local or world events rarely, and only when those events lie within our operational remit.”

In the last few years, Penn issued statements responding to a range of local and world catastrophes. The university condemned the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. University leaders called the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade a threat to “basic human rights” in a June 2022 statement and celebrated the jury conviction of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who killed George Floyd, in an April 2021 statement.

The new rules likely would preclude any of those kinds of statements issued by the university in the future.

‘Messages take sides’

Penn’s full policy, published on its website under the heading “Upholding Academic Independence,” lays out the dilemma increasingly roiling major universities: Issuing statements on political and social issues is often meaningful to those it addresses, and the practice increased during the social isolation of the pandemic. But doing so also puts the university in an obvious bind, one that Penn said is made worse by the fact that “these events across the world are almost limitless.”

“Responding to one issue inevitably highlights issues and groups that receive no message — omissions that carry their own meanings, however inadvertent,” Penn administrators wrote. “In many cases, messages take sides, or may appear to, on issues of immense significance or complexity.”

Messages left for representatives of Penn Hillel and Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine were not immediately returned.

Proponents of the idea of so-called institutional neutrality see it as a way to maintain vibrant debate on college campuses, allowing students and faculty freedom to express their own ideas and opinions without the interference of the institution. In a campuswide email accompanying the policy, interim president J. Larry Jameson expressed that hope: “By quieting Penn’s institutional voice, we hope to amplify the expertise and voices within,” he wrote.

But critics see the position — first popularized by the University of Chicago in 1967 to avoid taking a stance on the Vietnam War — as a way for institutions to duck moral responsibility on controversial issues. After Harvard announced its own similar decision in May, Lara Jirmanus, a physician and clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, called it a “bureaucratic sleight of hand” in an interview with the Boston Globe.

“Every decision at a university is highly political,” Jirmanus said. “From what is taught, to who gets tenure, to how Harvard invests its $50 billion endowment.”

Haverford College recently announced that its president would also no longer issue presidential statements “except about matters that directly impact Haverford or higher education.”

Even while saying that the new policy will rely on a hard line between those world issues that have a direct bearing on the university and those that don’t, Penn administrators acknowledged that such a distinction is far from clear and will probably be hashed out in real time.

“No established lines separate what is or is not of direct concern to University operations,” the new policy says, “so we expect occasional disagreement about where those lines are drawn.”

Source

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Mothers who took parental leave part-time or for shorter periods were more likely to engage in income-generating activities or pursue education. A new study uncovers surprising patterns in parental leave usage among newly arrived migrant women in Sweden, specifically focusing on their integration into the labor market.

The findings, published in the Journal of European Social Policy, provide new insights into how parental leave is used and how it affects labor market participation among newly arrived mothers who arrived in Sweden with young children.

The analysis reveals a polarization in the use of parental leave, with a significant number of mothers refraining from it while some took quite long leaves. Surprisingly, native-born mothers who returned with their children born abroad showed high usage of parental leave together with some groups of mothers with origin in Syria, Somalia and Thailand.

However, the authors were surprised that parental leave usage plays a limited role in future labor-market activity of newly arrived mothers.

Our study challenges the traditional view of parental leave among immigrant mothers. We found that part-time parental leave, contrary to what one might expect, actually fosters better integration into the labor market and educational pursuits, rather than hindering it.”

Eleonora Mussino, researcher at the Stockholm University Demography Unit at the Department of Sociology, and main author of the study

The finding underscores the potential of flexible parental leave policies in aiding the integration process. The authors interpret this to mean that short breaks from the labor market participation don’t necessarily hinder subsequent employment. In fact, part-time parental leave could offer immigrant mothers other ways of integration, such as through essential support and contacts, particularly if they spend this time on training or language acquisition.

“This research not only challenges existing perceptions but also opens new avenues for policy development, ensuring that Sweden’s family policies align with the diverse needs of its changing population”, says Eleonora Mussino.

The study utilized comprehensive data from Swedish population and social insurance registers and focuses on 82,800 women who immigrated to Sweden between 1995 and 2014 with at least one child under the age of 8.

Sweden, up until 2016, extended a generous parental leave offer to immigrants arriving with preschool-aged children. In 2017, age-based restrictions on parental leave for immigrant children were introduced.

“Unfortunately, our data did not capture the recent restrictions of parental leave days for foreign-born children. However, given the results in our analysis, we can expect minimal, or no, impact on labor-market integration due to this policy change”, says Eleonora Mussino.

“The insights from our research are pivotal for shaping future policies. They suggest that a generous parental leave policy does not necessarily delay labor market integration for immigrant mothers. Instead, it can provide a support system during their initial transition period in a new country”, adds Ann-Zofie Duvander, Professor of Demography at the Department of Sociology, and co-author of the study.

FACTS: How the study was done

• The study utilized comprehensive data from Swedish population and social insurance registers and focuses on 82,800 women who immigrated to Sweden between 1995 and 2014 with at least one child under the age of 8.

• The studied population includes Swedish-born woman as well migrant-born. Country of birth is categorized by the ten largest groups in the population (including native-born return immigrants), with all others aggregated in the category ‘miscellaneous’.

• The researchers followed the women for two years after their year of arrival to analyse whether their use of parental leave correlates with subsequent labor-market attachment.

• Labor-market attachment is measured based on the main economic activity (wages and entrepreneurial activities) and public transfers received in a certain year (unemployment benefit and student loan). The variable is categorized into 1) student or unemployed, 2) work with low income, 3) work with medium/high income, and 4) inactive, with no income from work or work-related benefits such as unemployment or student benefits, and women who 5) have another child, or 6) emigrate.

Source : News Medical Life Science

The post Flexible Parental Leave Policies Key for Immigrant Integration: Study appeared first on Policy Print.

The Albanese government’s cyber security policy aims to make Australian citizens, businesses and government agencies harder targets as they face what minister Clare O’Neil describes as “the fastest growing threat that we face as a nation”.

The policy, to be released on Wednesday by O’Neil, who is Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Cyber Security, is also designed to enable victims to bounce back faster from attacks that can’t be prevented.

A modest $586.9 million has been announced for the “action plan”, which runs to 2030. This is on top of the commitment to $2.3 billion for existing initiatives out to 2030.

Of the extra money, the largest slice is $290.8 million for support for small and medium-sized businesses, building public awareness, fighting cyber crime, breaking the ransomware business model, and strengthening the security of Australians’ identities.

Some $143.6 million will be invested in strengthening the defences of critical infrastructure and improving government cyber security.

Among the initiatives on critical infrastructure, telecommunication providers would be aligned to the same standards as other critical infrastructure entities by moving the security regulation of the sector from the Telecommunications Act to the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act. The policy says this is “commensurate with the criticality and risk profile of the sector”.

There will also be funding for establishing consumer standards for smart devices and software; building a threat sharing platform for the health sector; professionalising the cyber workforce and accelerating the cyber industry, and investing in regional co-operation and leadership in cyber governance forums internationally.

The government wants Australia to be “a world leader” in cyber security by 2030.

The policy sets three time “horizons”. In 2023-25, the foundations will be strengthened. addressing critical gaps and building better protections.

In 2026-28, the cyber industry would be further scaled up and a diverse cyber workforce would be grown. In 2029-30, “ We will advance the global frontier of cyber security. We will lead the development of emerging cyber technologies.”

O’Neil says in a press release: “Australia is a wealthy country and a fast adopter of new technologies, which makes us an attractive target for cyber criminals. Millions of Australians have had their data stolen and released online in the past year.

“Cyber also presents major opportunities for Australia – the global cyber industry is growing rapidly, and it is here to stay.”

Delivering the cyber strategy would require close collaboration between government and industry, O’Neil said.

Darren Goldie, who was recently appointed by O’Neil as National Cyber Security Coordinator, won’t be around for the policy release. He has been recalled to the Defence Department, in relation to a workforce complaint.

Source : The Conversation

The post New Cyber Policy to Harden Defences Against Our ‘Fastest Growing Threat’ appeared first on Policy Print.

Declarations of the end of an era are made only in exceptional circumstances. Henry Kissinger’s death is one of them.

Kissinger was born into a Jewish family in Germany, and fled to the US in 1938 after the Nazis seized power. He rose to one of the highest offices in the US government, and became the first person to serve as both secretary of state and national security adviser.

The 1973 Nobel Peace prize, which Kissinger shared with his North Vietnamese counterpart Le Duc Tho, recognised his contribution to the negotiations that ended the Vietnam war.

Kissinger advised a dozen US presidents, from Richard Nixon to Joe Biden. For advocates of realpolitik – a quintessentially pragmatic, utilitarian approach to foreign affairs – Kissinger was both author and master.

Across many years, his viewpoint remained largely unchanged: national security is the centrepiece of sovereignty, as both a means, and end in itself. From this perspective, Kissinger’s transformative diplomatic involvement in seminal events in the 20th century, and iconic insights in the 21st have shaped swathes of western geopolitics.

His fierce ambition was a key part of his vision, namely to rework the bipolar structure of the cold war, bent on establishing both US power, and arguably his own role in it.

Kissinger had no qualms backing the military dictatorship behind Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor in the 1970s. He supported the CIA in overthrowing president Salvador Allende of Chile in 1970, advocated sustained bombing in areas of North Vietnam, and encouraged the wiretapping of journalists critical of his Vietnam policy. He prioritised security over human rights, and commercial control over self-determination.

None of this was surprising. Kissinger’s entire approach to foreign policy was unsentimental at best, and brutish at worst. Peace, and the power to conclude a peace, could only be hewn coarsely from the unforgiving fibre of state relations, he believed.

To his critics, Kissinger’s actions in Vietnam, Chile, Indonesia and beyond significantly challenged his legacy of negotiation and diplomacy, and – in the eyes of some – were tantamount to war crimes.

Peacemaker or polariser?

Kissinger’s legacy will remain a mixed one. It incorporated truly ground-breaking efforts in opening up talks between the US with China and the Soviet Union, alongside visibly polarising outcomes for US foreign policy in its relations with South America and south-east Asia.

As secretary of state to presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, Kissinger’s geopolitical achievements established him as an elder statesman of the Republican Party. This rested on a trinity of endeavours: pulling the US out of the Vietnam War, establishing a host of new diplomatic connections between the US and China, and cultivating the first stages of détente (improved relations) with the Soviet Union.

Vietnam remains the most contentious of these areas, with accusations that Kissinger blithely applied bombing and destruction in Cambodia to extract the US from the Vietnam war. The peace was fragile and hostilities continued for years afterwards without the Americans.

Nixon and China

Kissinger’s reputation is on sturdier grounds with the grand strategy to permanently open relations between the US and both China and the Soviet Union. This facilitated a reduction in east-west tensions that materially benefited the US. It also saw Kissinger effectively playing the two communist powers against each other.

Concentrated through the lens of the cold war, the majority of Kissinger’s interactions were based on an approach that balanced caution with aggression, and pragmatism with the acquisition of power.

This was sometimes directly, but often through the use of proxy wars, including Vietnam and the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and Arab states, which descended into a power play with the Soviets, as did the 1971 India-Pakistan war. The image of Kissinger entirely comfortable with the high-stakes poker game between superpowers is an arresting one.

Post-cold war geopolitics did not diminish Kissinger’s overall approach. He counselled generations of US decision-makers to remember the virtues of allying with smaller states as well as superpowers for reasons of power and commerce, and a commitment to retain lethal force in the US foreign policy toolbox.

For scholars of international relations, Kissinger’s numerous books, from the iconic Diplomacy and Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, to Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy are an inventory of hard-headed views on the unrelenting demands of classic and modern statecraft and the challenges of crafting not just foreign policy, but grand strategy.

They are also a masterclass in European history, with a powerful message regarding sovereignty and the supreme role of the national interests in foreign policy, regionally and globally.

Kissinger’s relentless dedication to realpolitik as the fiercest approach to managing international affairs is at odds with the many elements of his personality. Nowhere is this more evident than in his writing, with “characteristics ranging from brilliance and wit to sensitivity, melancholy, abrasiveness and savagery”.

Kissinger’s final impact is on the hardware and software of global diplomacy: guns versus ideas. A pragmatic, even cynical approach tackling the imbalance of power between states impelled Kissinger to promote seemingly paradoxical approaches: ground-breaking diplomatic approaches to ensure peace, easily reconciled with a ruthless reliance on military power.

This, in turn, gave his counterparts little option other than to cooperate, which they generally did, from the North Vietnamese to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, to China’s prime minister Zhou Enlai.

In his later years, seemingly immune to his foreign policy bungles, Kissinger’s celebrity diplomat status remained undimmed, somehow confirming the sense that international relations routinely transcends domestic politics, and in doing so, remains both a high stakes game, and a distinctive area of practice. His passion for foreign affairs never dimmed, commenting on the October 7 Hamas attack just a few weeks before his death.

For every one of Kissinger’s brilliant moves, there was a bungling countermove. Students of foreign policy need therefore to consider both Kissinger’s scholarship and his practice.

They should look through examples of his work in which one side seizes upon anything resembling a diplomatic opportunity, and commandeers its potential to produce a win, and then calls that a victory. Such victories however could be fleeting and left behind tensions that frequently came home to roost.

Source : The Coversation

The post Henry Kissinger Was a Global – and Deeply Flawed – Foreign Policy Heavyweight appeared first on Policy Print.

Time can make a huge difference. This is certainly true of the US’ stance on industrial policy. Just a few years ago, “industrial policy” was a derogatory term that Washington reserved almost exclusively for China as if it had forgotten that it was a pioneer of the practice.

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration set annual ceilings for Japan’s car exports to the US, and forced Tokyo to accept rules that limited Japanese chip exports while extracting improved US access to the Japanese market.

With the US emerging victorious from the Cold War, Washington saw a reduced need for industrial policy. Meanwhile, it frowned on the countries that adopted the practice, blasting China’s industrial policy as “non-market”.

Some 30 years on, industrial policy is back in fashion in the US. While continuing to censure China, Washington passed the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips and Science Act in 2022.

Industrial policy is commonly defined as measures taken by a government to shape the economy by targeting specific industries, firms or economic activities through tax incentives, subsidies, protective regulations and research and development support.

China was a latecomer on the scene. Taking its cue from the East Asian countries that transformed their economies through industrial policy, Beijing put in place something of its own in 1986.

China’s industrial policy is similar to that of Japan, South Korea and the European Union, albeit more pervasive. For this reason, it has withstood challenges the US brought before the World Trade Organization.

In contrast, US industrial policy is one of a kind. What sets it apart from the pack is, first and foremost, its purpose. Conventional industrial policy is internally focused, aimed at developing national capacity. However, US industrial policy has, as well as investing in American workers and science, an important additional goal: suppressing competitors, especially those perceived to be narrowing the gap with the US.

The Reagan administration’s “managed trade”, since outlawed, was intended to clamp down on Japanese automobile and semiconductor industries. The exercise was hugely successful, and contributed in no small part to Japan’s three lost decades.

Washington’s industrial policy for semiconductors today is designed to cripple Chinese competition or to ensure the US maintains, as National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan put it, “as large of a lead as possible”.

US industry policy distinguishes itself in another important aspect: approach. The Biden administration says its industrial policy is rooted in national security concerns, and maintains that there is no room for compromise on such matters.

It is easy to see why Washington links its industrial policy with national security: to justify the measures it wishes to take. Consequently, US industrial policy includes extreme measures outside the realm of conventional industrial policy.

The US’ “high fence” around its semiconductor sector, for example, includes export bans, investment curbs and blacklists of competing companies.

On top of an arsenal already swollen with trade, the Swift global payments system and the dollar, Washington is now using industry policy as a weapon to achieve its geopolitical objectives – not unlike an unscrupulous sportsman tripping up a competitor to win a race.

While conventional industrial policy operates behind the border, America’s industrial policy extends its reach beyond US territory, adversely affecting foreign governments and companies. Foreign companies deemed to have violated US sanctions are subject to heavy fines, while foreign nationals on the wrong side of US rules face prison terms.

In an aberration from conventional industrial policy, the US calls for allies and like-minded economies to align against its competitors. The Biden administration has formed a “ Chip 4” alliance with South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, and seeks to set up a “critical minerals buyers club” with the European Union and the Group of 7.

It pressured Japan and the Netherlands into enforcing semiconductor export curbs against China, while prohibiting funding recipients under the Chips and Science Act from expanding capacity there. Moreover, the US is pushing “friend-shoring” to isolate China.

In addition, US industrial policy is likely to have contravened global trade rules. China has filed a suit with the WTO over the US’ chip export bans. Some in the EU have threatened WTO action against the US over an Inflation Reduction Act subsidy scheme that excludes electric vehicles made outside North America.

To allay similar Japanese concerns about the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration concluded an agreement with Tokyo on critical minerals for electric vehicle batteries, which was presented as a sort of free-trade agreement. But such narrow sectors “do not count as a free trade area”, according to Inu Manak, a trade policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Washington’s industrial policy has serious consequences for the world. It is creating new trade barriers. Market distortion at its worst, it threatens to dismantle the current global supply chains, which would lead to substantial inefficiency and loss of economic output.

Some of the effects of US industrial policy are already evident in the semiconductor sector, where it is no longer possible to freely source or sell raw materials, products, manufacturing machines or technology. As Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) founder Morris Chang put it, “in the chip sector, globalisation is dead”.

President Joe Biden has stressed on numerous occasions the necessity of US global leadership. However, on industrial policy at least, the world would be much better off without it.

Source : SCMP

The post How the US’ Exceptional Industrial Policy is Killing Globalisation appeared first on Policy Print.

The American College of Cardiology (ACC), Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) and Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) are calling on a health insurance company based out of Spokane, Washington, to rethink one of its billing policies for transcatheter heart procedures.

The three groups wrote a letter to Asuris Northwest Health about its coding recommendations for valve-in-valve transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and transcatheter mitral valve repair (TMVR) procedures. Currently, the insurance company asks providers to use 33999, an unlisted CPT code, for these procedures. The groups, however, do not believe this accurately measures the amount of work being provided by the care team.

“ACC, SCAI and STS would like to point out that the work associated with a valve-in-valve procedure is virtually identical to the work involved in the native valve TAVR (33361-33366) and TMVR (33418-33419) procedures and believe that it is more appropriate to use the TAVR or TMVR CPT codes for these procedures,” the groups wrote. “In cases where the valve-in-valve procedure makes the case more complex, such as when bioprosthetic valve fracture is performed, we recommend that the TAVR or TMVR CPT code should be billed with a -22 modifier to indicate the additional complexity. We therefore respectfully request that you change your coding guidance regarding coding for these procedures.”

The letter was addressed to Asuris Northwest Health President Brady Cass and signed by ACC President B. Hadley Wilson, MD; SCAI President George Dangas, MD, PhD; and STS President Thomas E. MacGillivray, MD.

Source : Cardiovascular Business

The post Cardiologists, Cardiac Surgeons Push Insurance Company to Rethink Billing Policy appeared first on Policy Print.

After years of declining union membership, multiple high-profile workers’ strikes continue around the country.

The Maine Center for Economic Policy hosted a talk in Portland Wednesday about worker empowerment and the importance of labor organizers.

The presentation Wednesday night featured Chris Smalls, who is the founder of the Amazon Labor Union.

He talked about what he went through to put that union together, which was a win for workers back in 2022. He also talked about why these organizations are so important for workers.

This presentation came in the midst of the Mills administration’s negotiations with state union workers.

About a week ago, the state said it’s still hundreds of millions of dollars away from finalizing a new contract with union workers, and the state is hiring a mediator to help work out those negotiations.

Wednesday night, Smalls talked about what can be done at the state level to support unions, as he discussed his experiences negotiating wages and working conditions with a tech giant.

In 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 9.2 percent of Maine workers were members of a union, which was more than a 3 percent decrease in membership since 2021.

There’s been a push to unionize at places like Starbucks and Chipotle in Maine, and Maine Medical Center nurses voted for their first union contract a year ago.

In Brunswick, Staples workers are petitioning to become the first unionized Staples store in the country, according to the Times Record.

Source : WGME

The post Maine Center for Economic Policy Hosts Talk in Portland to Stress Importance of Unions appeared first on Policy Print.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) is widely considered to be the most ambitious climate policy action in U.S. history. Over the next decade and beyond, a broad array of new tax credits and direct government expenditures will provide substantial support for clean technologies and industries, as well as direct incentives for U.S. households and firms to invest in the equipment and capital needed to reduce their carbon emissions.

The financial sector will play a key role in financing this green transition, and forward-looking financial markets can provide a useful early indication of the IRA’s success. We take a climate finance perspective to investigate the financial market responses to the IRA.

We study U.S. stock market movements following two key climate policy news events. First, on July 14, 2022, the withdrawal of support for new climate spending by Senator Joe Manchin pushed the probability of any near-term climate policy action to almost zero. Then, on July 27, 2022, the IRA was unveiled, and it became obvious that sizable climate policy legislation would be enacted. The stock market strongly reacted to these two events but in very different ways across industries and firms. In particular, firm-level financial responses to these events differed across measures of greenness such as environmental scores and emission intensities. After the first event, which signaled no climate policy action in the near term, the stock market values of green firms—those with relatively low emission intensities and superior environmental scores—fell, and the values of brown firms rose. By contrast, with the announcement of a near-certain IRA, green firms benefited, and brown firms did not. The heterogeneous stock market responses across these measures of greenness are statistically and economically significant and support the use of such metrics in identifying climate policy exposure.

Our results also contribute to a growing literature on the pricing of climate risks in financial markets. The two events studied represent major realizations of climate policy transition risk. Such transition risks are of keen interest to central banks and other financial supervisory authorities that have started to quantify them through climate scenario analyses. The chief concern is that if investor expectations were to adjust precipitously to new climate policies, the resulting adverse revaluations of carbon-dependent assets could have severe implications for financial solvency and stability. While the financial market response to the IRA was economically significant, it did not lead to instability or financial stress, suggesting that transition risks posed by climate policies as ambitious as the IRA may be manageable.

Source : Brookings

The post The Effect of US Climate Policy on Financial Markets: an Event Study of the Inflation Reduction Act appeared first on Policy Print.

Chicago education officials will vote next week to officially codify new changes that will grant teachers and school leaders additional parental leave time, bringing them in line with other city workers.

The Board of Education is set to approve an expanded parental leave program for Chicago Public Schools employees that will give birthing and non-birthing parents up to 12 weeks of paid time off after they have a child.

“Many educators have been pushing for this for a long time, particularly adoptive parents, so I’m glad that this is moving forward,” board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland said during Wednesday’s agenda review committee meeting.

Until now, birthing parents received six-to-eight weeks of short-term disability leave, while non-birth parents got two weeks of paid leave. The new policy brings CPS in line with other city workers, who already received up to 12 weeks of leave.

Mayor Brandon Johnson announced this change back in June, but said it wouldn’t be approved until later in the summer. That gave CPS and the Chicago Teachers Union time to review and tweak the policy through a joint working group.

While the policy won’t officially be approved until next week, it was enacted last month at the start of the current school year, according to Karla Kirkling, the district’s executive director of healthcare and benefits.

“From an equity focus, we believe the extension of leave benefits to all parents — regardless of gender or biological relationship to the child — creates a more inclusive and supportive work environment,” Kirkling said. “Furthermore, equitable pay family leave policies acknowledge the financial needs and challenges faced by all parents and this helps provide a safety net for families.”

Kirkling said CPS also sees this policy as an attractive benefit to recruit and retain educators and employees.

She told the board Wednesday that 471 CPS educators and employees have already requested or been approved for this leave, which carries an estimated cost of $8.3 million.

According to Kirkling, CPS estimates spending an additional $16 million on this for the rest of the current school year.

The board will vote on this policy during its monthly meeting next week.

Source : WTTV

The post CPS Board Set to Approve Expanded Parental Leave Policy for Educators and Employees appeared first on Policy Print.

Saudi Arabia’s oil policy is based purely on supply and demand, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Sept. 20, in an interview broadcast on Fox News.

“We just watch supply, demand. If there is a shortage of supply, our role in OPEC+ is to fill the shortage. If there is oversupply our role is to measure that for stability of the market,” he said, when asked about OPEC+ supply cuts benefiting Russia.

Saudi Arabia has faced criticism for sticking to its cooperation with Russia and introducing major cuts, at a time when Western countries have imposed wide-ranging sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Production cuts have boosted prices, helping Russia to deal with sanctions, spiraling war costs and discounts on its crude.

The Crown Prince said that invading a country is really bad, but Saudi Arabia has a good relationship with both Russia and Ukraine. He pointed to cooperation with Iran continuing within OPEC, despite political tensions, as a further example of how supply and demand, rather than geopolitics, governs Saudi production policy.

Saudi Arabia is pursuing a policy of significant crude production cuts, despite expectations of a supply squeeze at the end of 2023 and a significant increase in oil prices in recent months. It is cutting alongside other OPEC+ producers, including Russia, the largest non-OPEC producer in the group.

OPEC’s latest forecast is for global oil demand to outstrip supply by more than 3 million b/d in the fourth quarter of 2023. Oil prices have also seen a significant rise in recent months. OPEC+ producers have not yet indicated that these two factors require any adjustment to current quotas.

Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said Sept. 18 that OPEC and its allies will continue to be “proactive, preemptive and precautious” in managing the market.

Oil prices have risen significantly since Saudi Arabia announced its latest voluntary cuts. Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed Dated Brent at $95.725/b on Sept. 20, up from $74.605/b at the start of June.

Saudi Arabia’s production is now at a two-year low of 9 million b/d — a level it expects to maintain until the end of 2023. S&P Global expects Saudi Arabia to maintain its 1 million b/d cut until the end of the year.

Russia is also curtailing production, with its latest pledge to cut 300,000 b/d of supply up to the end of 2023. Both countries have said that output plans will be reviewed on a monthly basis.

The next meeting of the committee that oversees the OPEC+ agreement is due to meet on Oct. 4 to discuss market conditions and production volumes. A full OPEC+ ministerial meeting is scheduled for Nov. 26. The deal also includes the option to hold extraordinary meetings if necessary.

Source : S&P Global

The post Saudi Oil Policy Based Purely on Supply and Demand: Crown Prince appeared first on Policy Print.