“Today, the Commission has opened non-compliance investigations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) into Alphabet’s rules on steering in Google Play and self-preferencing on Google Search, Apple’s rules on steering in the App Store and the choice screen for Safari and Meta’s ‘pay or consent model,’” the European Commission said in a statement.

The first two probes focus on Alphabet and Apple and relate to so-called anti-steering rules. Under the DMA, tech firms are not allowed to block businesses from telling their users about cheaper options for their products or about subscriptions outside of an app store.

“The way that Apple and Alphabet’s implemented the DMA rules on anti-steering seems to be at odds with the letter of the law. Apple and Alphabet will still charge various recurring fees, and still limit steering,” the E.U.’s competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, said Monday at a news conference.

Apple has already fallen foul of the E.U.’s rules. This month, the company was fined 1.8 billion euros ($1.95 billion) after the European Commission said it found that Apple had applied restrictions on app developers that prevented them from informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app.

In a third inquiry, the commission said it is investigating whether Apple has complied with its DMA obligations to ensure that users can easily uninstall apps on iOS and change default settings. The probe also focuses on whether Apple is actively prompting users with choices to allow them to change default services on iOS, such as for the web browser or search engine.

The commission said that it is “concerned that Apple’s measures, including the design of the web browser choice screen, may be preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services within the Apple ecosystem.”

Apple said it believes it is in compliance with the DMA.

“We’re confident our plan complies with the DMA, and we’ll continue to constructively engage with the European Commission as they conduct their investigations. Teams across Apple have created a wide range of new developer capabilities, features, and tools to comply with the regulation,” an Apple spokesperson told CNBC on Monday.

The fourth probe targets Alphabet, as the European Commission looks into whether the firm’s display of Google search results “may lead to self-preferencing in relation to Google’s,” other services such as Google Shopping, over similar rival offerings.

“To comply with the Digital Markets Act, we have made significant changes to the way our services operate in Europe,” Oliver Bethell, director of competition at Alphabet, said in a statement.

“We have engaged with the European Commission, stakeholders and third parties in dozens of events over the past year to receive and respond to feedback, and to balance conflicting needs within the ecosystem. We will continue to defend our approach in the coming months.”

Alphabet pointed to a blog post from earlier this month, wherein the company outlined some of those changes — including giving Android phone users the option to easily change their default search engine and browser, as well as making it easier for people to see comparison sites in areas like shopping or flights in Google searches.

Meta investigation

The fifth and final investigation focuses on Meta and its so-called pay and consent model. Last year, Meta introduced an ad-free subscription model for Facebook and Instagram in Europe. The commission is looking into whether offering the subscription model without ads or making users consent to terms and conditions for the free service is in violation of the DMA.

“The Commission is concerned that the binary choice imposed by Meta’s ‘pay or consent’ model may not provide a real alternative in case users do not consent, thereby not achieving the objective of preventing the accumulation of personal data by gatekeepers.”

Thierry Breton, the E.U.’s internal market commissioner, said during the news conference that there should be “free alternative options” offered by Meta for its services that are “less personalized.”

“Gatekeepers” is a label for large tech firms that are required to comply with the DMA in the E.U.

“We will continue to use all available tools, should any gatekeeper try to circumvent or undermine the obligations of the DMA,” Vestager said.

Meta said subscriptions are a common business model across various industries.

“Subscriptions as an alternative to advertising are a well-established business model across many industries, and we designed Subscription for No Ads to address several overlapping regulatory obligations, including the DMA. We will continue to engage constructively with the Commission,” a Meta spokesperson told CNBC on Monday.

Tech giants at risk of fines

The commission said it intends to conclude its probes within 12 months, but Vestager and Breton during the Monday briefing stressed that the DMA does not dictate a hard deadline for the timeline of the inquiry. The regulators will inform the companies of their preliminary findings and explain measures they are taking or the gatekeepers should take in order to address the commission’s concerns.

If any company is found to have infringed the DMA, the commission can impose fines of up to 10% of the tech firms’ total worldwide turnover. These penalties can increase to 20% in case of repeated infringement.

The commission said it is also looking for facts and information to clarify whether Amazon may be preferencing its own brand products on its e-commerce platform over rivals. The commission is further studying Apple’s new fee structure and other terms and conditions for alternative app stores.

This month, the tech giant announced that users in the E.U. would be able to download apps from websites rather than through its proprietary App Store — a change that Apple has resisted for years.

The E.U.’s research into Apple and Amazon does not comprise official investigations.

Source: NBC News

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The European Commission published its proposal for an EU raw materials initiative (Critical Raw Materials Act, CRMA) in March 2023. The proposal contains plans to open new mines in Europe and to utilize minerals found in the waste materials of closed mines. Permitting procedures for new mines are additionally proposed to be shortened, and mining companies will be required to report their environmental footprints to the EU. The European Parliament approved the Act last September. To scrutinize the proposed Act, along with its implications to mining practices and our planetary boundaries, we held a seminar series with invited experts during autumn 2023.

The seminar series revolved around crucial questions that are expected to fundamentally shape our future: do we have enough minerals in the world for a green transition? What will be the environmental impact of increasing the number of mines? Is circular economy the solution, or should we reduce our consumption?

Europe depends on imported critical raw materials for its green transition

The autumn seminars were kicked off with a thoroughly informative presentation by Henna Virkkunen, Member of The European Parliament (MEP), working on the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE). MEP Virkkunen laid out the facts: the EU is currently dependent on China when it comes to critical raw materials. While Europeans consume around 20% of the world’s critical raw materials, only approximately 2% are produced in Europe. The proposed Act supports the plan to shift this balance towards a more self-sufficient and supply-secure future. The audience raised concerns about environmental safety and environmental degradation due to the increasing volume of mining, especially considering the simplified permitting process for critical raw material projects.

Tackling biodiversity loss while increasing mining is a conundrum

Transitioning from a fossil fuel-based economy is argued to be dependent on mining more (critical) raw materials. But how to do it sustainably with minimal environmental damage, and how well are natural values considered in the short and long term when decisions are made regarding new mines? The Chairman of the Finnish Nature Panel Professor Janne Kotiaho, from the University of Jyväskylä, and environmental activist Riikka Karppinen from Sodankylä further reflected on these questions.

Professor Kotiaho’s message was grimly realistic: biodiversity loss continues at an accelerated rate in both Europe and Finland, and we are all responsible for it. He argued that at the current state of affairs, to truly halt biodiversity and nature loss, we need to implement restorative, nature-positive solutions instead of solutions based on the principle of no net loss. Karppinen expressed shock and discontent regarding the aims to facilitate the opening of new mines in currently protected areas in the name of a green transition. Karppinen has frequently spoken out against a global mining company that is planning on opening a new nickel mine near her home in an area protected by Finnish law and the EU Natura framework. During her presentation, she kindly shared her experiences regarding the residents’ struggles.

The critical raw materials are not renewable

The green transition’s burden on the natural environment may indeed be enormous. But do we have enough materials to fully shift to renewables, or are we about to reach the limits of the planet’s boundaries? Research Professor Simon Michaux, from the Finnish Geological Survey, provided astounding figures on the amounts of minerals actually required for the green transition. According to his estimates, at current energy use rates, we simply do not have enough minerals in the world to fully shift to renewables, and in fact, minerals are “the new oil”. Professor Michaux’s presentation left us thinking: if we do not have enough materials in the world to substitute fossil fuels with renewables, are our current consumption patterns simply doomed?

To better understand how the new Critical Raw Materials Act may look like in Finland, we listened to a presentation by Jarkko Vesa, Special Advisor at the Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. He provided a thorough overview on how the implementation process began. As the Director of Sustainable Development of the mining company Terrafame, Veli-Matti Hilla further underscored: it is clear that mining has received a substantial boost from the EU institutes.

A mix of solutions is needed for a sustainable future

Director Lasse Miettinen from Sitra gave the closing presentation to our seminar series, and it ended on a rather optimistic note. He argued – in line with most of our presenters, along with our own concerns – that we are currently exceeding the limits of our planet. To imagine a more sustainable future, we need to learn to think about ecosystems in a more nuanced and interconnected way. The climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and natural resource depletion cannot be solved separately. Both biotic and abiotic resources are part of nature and managing them should be reframed accordingly. Director Miettinen argued that transitioning to a circular economy is a crucial part and precondition of the solution to our multiple crises. To reduce supply risks and ensure positive environmental outcomes, we need circular solutions, diversified supplies, and more local production beside aiming for sustainable lifestyles and biodiversity offsets. He encouraged us to think that building a more sustainable future is indeed possible.

Professor of Practice in Environmental Responsibility and Chair of the seminar series, Hannele Pokka further noted that while observing how mining in Finland has developed over the years, ordinary people tend to support mining but under no circumstances do they want a mine near their homes. Finland is an old mining country, and minerals have been extracted from the land for hundreds of years. Public opinion in Finland has taken a more critical stance on mining in recent years, which has been reinforced by the Talvivaara mine environmental disaster. It has been difficult for new mining projects to gain social acceptance, and several mining projects, especially in Northern Finland are pending. If mining companies want to seek approval for their projects, mining should be reformed to incorporate a more comprehensive notion of sustainability, including new approaches and technological solutions in water management.

The seminar series, above all, taught us that what used to be possible in mining is not so any longer, and we need drastic changes to remain within our planetary boundaries.

Seminar recordings and further reading materials are available via the links embedded in the text.

Source: Mirage News

The post Probing EU Mineral Policy: Can Mining Become Sustainable? appeared first on Policy Print.

The influential Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries coalition and its allies, collectively known as OPEC+, on Thursday opted against formally deepening production cuts, while de facto leader Saudi Arabia extended its 1 million barrel per day voluntary trim into the first quarter, and other members announced further reductions.

The policy steps were decided in a virtual meeting delayed by internal disagreements over the baselines — the levels off which quotas are decided — of the OPEC group’s largest West African members, Nigeria and Angola. The spat postponed talks initially scheduled to be held in person in Vienna over the weekend of Nov. 25-26. The baselines of Angola, Nigeria and Congo remain under study.

The OPEC+ alliance had already instituted a 2 million barrel per day cut in place until the end of 2024, with several coalition members voluntarily pledging a further 1.66 million barrel per day decline over that same period.

While OPEC+ has not formally endorsed production reductions, market participants are following the possibility of further voluntary cuts announced by key participants to the coalition. Already, Saudi state media has announced that Riyadh will extend its voluntary reduction of 1 million barrels per day, which it has had in place since July, until the end of the first quarter of 2024.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who represents his country in OPEC+ affairs, has said Moscow will implement a voluntary supply cut totaling 300,000 barrels per day of crude and 200,000 barrels per day of petroleum products over that same period, according to a Google-translated statement on Telegram.

Close Saudi ally Kuwait will enforce a 135,000 barrel per day reduction in the first quarter, while the Energy Ministry of OPEC member Algeria said it would trim a further 51,000 barrels per day. Oman said it will also reduce output by 42,000 barrels per day in that same period.

Source : CNBC

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There was a revelatory moment on the weekend as Defence Minister Bill Blair attempted to bridge the gap between rhetoric and reality in the Liberal government’s spending plans for his department and the Canadian military.

Asked about an anticipated (and long overdue) update to the country’s defence policy (supposedly made urgent two years ago by Russia’s full-on invasion of Ukraine), Blair acknowledged that the reset is now being viewed through a fiscal lens.

“We said we’re going to bring forward a new defence policy update. We’ve been working through that,” Blair told CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live on Sunday.

“The current fiscal environment that the country faces itself does require (that) that defence policy update … recognize (the) fiscal challenges. And so it’ll be part of … our future budget processes.”

It’s an important statement, in light of today’s federal fiscal update. It also brings up a question: has the Trudeau government — which billed itself initially as an “evidence-based” government — viewed its existing defence policy through the lens of affordability?

For several weeks now, Blair has been called upon to defend a $1 billion annual reduction in planned defence spending during a time of geopolitical turmoil — part of the federal government’s overall spending reduction plan.

After it initially denied it was cutting defence spending, the government’s messaging shifted to focus on fiscal prudence and accountability to taxpayers squeezed by the high cost of living.

The release last week of federal budget estimates and supplementary appropriations effectively put a spike in the claim that the defence spending reductions don’t amount to a cut. It also raised questions about whether the goals of the original defence policy are even being met.

What the estimates say, what the minister says

In 2017, the Liberal government estimated it would spend $29.8 billion at National Defence in the current budget year.

The supplementary budget estimates, meanwhile, record a total appropriation of $28.9 billion for defence in the current fiscal year — $500 million of which is destined not for the Canadian Armed Forces but for the Ukrainian military.

When you add up the difference, you find the “almost $1 billion” cut that the country’s top military commander warned about — or the “$900 million and change” the deputy defence minister described.

And yet, at the Halifax International Security Forum over the weekend, Blair struck a decidedly hawkish tone in front of a hawkish audience.

“Although we are already investing in major new military capabilities in all domains, again, I will reiterate additional investments are needed and they will occur,” he said Friday during his opening remarks. “We know that we need resources to put behind our aspirations.”

Later, during a round of media interviews, the minister was a bit more specific.

“We need to spend more on the right things,” he told CBC News.

“We need to spend more on munitions. We need to spend more on military platforms, planes, submarines and ships. We need to spend more on the equipment, the resources and the training that the Canadian Armed Forces needs.”

The problem with Blair’s remarks is how they keep bumping up against reality. Big cash injections to pay for 88 new F-35 fighter jets, new patrol frigates and even MQ-9 Reaper drones are still three to five years down the road.

Those are the “aspirations” Blair was talking about.

What’s happening now was spelled out quite clearly in those same recently released federal government estimates. They show the Liberals intend to cut $500 million across government during the current fiscal year — $211.1 million at the Department of National Defence alone.

Today’s mini-budget could tell us what the reduction will look like in future years — given that the existing defence policy forecast a spike in appropriations connected to the purchase of big-ticket items, such as the new fighter jets and new naval frigates.

The recent signals from Blair have been unmistakable.

“We may not be able to go as fast as we might have hoped, but we have to continue to move forward,” he said. 

Some defence analysts question whether any new defence policy could be relevant, given that the goals set out in the 2017 policy document aren’t even being met.

Military ‘unable’ to meet terms of 2017 defence policy

One policy goal of the existing defence plan, Strong, Secure and Engaged, was to require that the military be able to concurrently deliver “two sustained deployments of 500 [to] 1,500 personnel in two different theaters of operation, including one as a lead nation.”

In a footnote, the recent estimates said the Canadian military is “currently unable to conduct multiple operations concurrently per the requirements laid out in the 2017 Defence Policy. Readiness of CAF force elements has continued to decrease over the course of the last year, aggravated by decreasing number of personnel and issues with equipment and vehicles.”

Some analysts say they believe that even if the federal government hits its overall budget reduction targets, what has been taken away from defence — and what’s about to be taken away — won’t be coming back, the minister’s public assurances notwithstanding.

“Reversing the trend toward deficit reduction would also not guarantee a major boost to defence spending, as numerous other domestic issues ranging from cost-of-living and housing availability to health care and climate change would be major competitors for additional spending,” Geordie Jeakins, an analyst specializing in defence and aerospace at the consulting firm Oliver Wyman, wrote in a policy paper posted by the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

“This is all notwithstanding the possibility of a recession or other external shocks further complicating the fiscal picture.”

Jeakins went on to say that the Liberal government’s policy goal of “reorienting the CAF’s mission to be more assertive would likely be an expensive endeavour.

“The new defence strategy will have to consider carefully if Canada wants to undertake this role and, if so, how it intends to marshal the resources to make it a reality.”

It’s not likely Tuesday’s mini-budget will deliver that kind of blinding clarity. That point was tacitly acknowledged by Blair when, in an interview with CBC News, he described his assurances to the security forum this way:

“I was simply acknowledging to the room that we’ve got a lot of work to do, and we’ve got to, first of all, have the funding that we need in order to make those investments,” he said.

Source : CBC

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It is decision time for Rishi Sunak. Perhaps as early as this week, the Government could put forward its plans for finally getting the Rwanda scheme off the ground and deporting illegal migrants to the east African country.

The Rwanda plan is not perfect: in particular, it would only entail a limited number of deportations. But there is no way in which the numbers crossing the Channel can be seriously reduced without a credible deterrent, and the Prime Minister has made stopping the boats one of his core pledges to the public. He cannot afford to betray the voters on this now.

The Government is understood to be considering a range of proposals for counteracting the criticisms made of the policy by the Supreme Court, which ruled it unlawful last month. A Bill is expected to be introduced that will declare Rwanda safe for asylum seekers and enshrine in law a new treaty with the country.

But on whether to go further, ministers are split. Some favour merely disapplying the UK Human Rights Act in asylum claims. Others fear that this would not go far enough. Conservative backbenchers such as Sir Bill Cash who writes in this paper today, argue that a full-fat alternative, including “notwithstanding” clauses, would remove the right of judicial review.

This could permit the Government to ignore the European Convention on Human Rights without leaving it. Alegally sound Bill may also have to account for a much wider range of treaties which underpin the principle of non-refoulement, perhaps including the 1984 UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the 1966 UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

There is some disquiet over whether this latter option, even if it only focuses on the ECHR, would get through Parliament, principally because of opposition in the House of Lords, but also because of a rump of Conservative MPs who have set their faces against their own voters. The Prime Minister cannot allow the defeatism or cowardice of some of his Tory colleagues to get in the way of ending this scandal.

The thousands of migrants entering the country illegally every year are infuriating the public, and potentially constitute a security threat given that we do not know who they are. But the fact that outdated international conventions can stop our representatives from doing what they were elected to do also threatens to undermine faith in democracy itself.

The Prime Minister needs to take a similarly hard-headed approach to legal migration. The current numbers are making a mockery of the promise inherent in Brexit that Britain would once again have control over its borders.

Mr Sunak should not be afraid of a fight on migration – illegal or legal. A semi-skimmed version of the Rwanda plan will not be enough. It would only confirm to the voters that the Government, too terrified of offending bien pensant opinion, is not serious about stopping the boats.

Source : Yahoo

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The State Department today launched a new visa restriction policy targeting individuals running charter flights into Nicaragua designed primarily for irregular migrants.  In a growing trend, charter flight companies have been offering flights—and charging extortion-level prices—that put migrants onto a dangerous overland path north to the U.S. border.  Many of these migrants lack a legal basis for entering or remaining in the United States and are often returned to their home countries, having wasted significant personal resources and put themselves and their families at risk.

As part of our comprehensive approach to addressing irregular migration, the U.S. government is taking steps to impose visa restrictions under INA 212 (a)(3)(C) against owners, executives, and/or senior officials of companies providing charter flights into Nicaragua designed for use primarily by irregular migrants to the United States.  These charter flights and their operators target migrants and put them in harm’s way.  We are also engaging with governments in the region, as well as the private sector, to seek to eliminate this exploitative practice.

We urge Haitian, Cuban, and other would-be migrants to seek out the many safe and lawful pathways available to migrate to the United States.  This administration has led the largest expansion of lawful pathways in decades, and continues to enforce consequences, including removal to their home country, for those who do not use these pathways to come to the United States and who lack a legal basis to remain. 

Source : US Departmen of State

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During a recent speech, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida outlined his primary policy priority in simple terms — ‘economy, economy, economy’. Notably absent was any mention of foreign workers and their role in sustaining Japan’s future economic development. This is surprising, given the well-documented need to further increase the foreign workforce, which has already reached record highs in 2023.

In 2022, the Japan International Cooperation Agency outlined that Japan would need over 6.7 million foreign workers by 2040 to maintain an economic output aligned with the government’s GDP growth targets. This represents a roughly four-fold increase from current levels. Kishida re-started the large-scale admission of foreign workers in Spring 2022, following a relaxation of pandemic-related border restrictions. Yet, he has been hesitant to outline a broader vision for the long-term admittance and potential integration of migrant workers.

The reluctance to implement a formal immigration policy has long precedence among Japanese policymakers. For example, when presenting the 2018 amendment to the Immigration Control Act, the late former prime minister Shinzo Abe stated that ‘Japan would not adopt a so-called immigration policy’. Instead, the amendments established the Specified Skilled Worker (SSW) system, which aims to boost foreign worker admittance within 12 economic sectors suffering from acute labour shortages.

Japan has long relied on immigration ‘side doors’ — pathways to admit primarily lower skilled foreign workers while legally denying their presence. These channels have historically included the generous admittance of people of Japanese descent, with the Abe years seeing a rapid increase in the numbers of working international students and participants in the Technical Intern Training Program (TITP). But these ‘side doors’ have also been subject to criticism for placing foreign workers in vulnerable labour environments.

While the SSW system requires that workers pass an industry aptitude test and imposes some language requirements, the industries which the system serves and the institutions which govern it strongly overlap with the TITP. Unsurprisingly, the SSW system essentially functions as a way for employers to retain technical interns, with roughly 70 per cent of specified skilled workers coming from the TITP.

As it pertains to foreign workers, Kishida has so far opted to maintain the status quo set by Abe, preferring to adjust Japan’s primary admittance policies instead of implementing major reform. In June 2023, his cabinet passed an expansion of the SSW Residence Status Two, which allows for unlimited renewals and family reunification. While this provides an effective path to long-term settlement for lower skilled workers, the expansion has been essentially non-functional, with only 12 SSW Two status holders as of June 2023.

While the Kishida government expanded the acceptable industries that foreign students graduating from vocational schools can find employment in, one of the most significant changes may lie in the future of the TITP, which is being reviewed by a Ministry of Justice appointed panel. Currently, the TITP works under the pretext of facilitating ‘skills transfer’ to developing countries, though analysts argue that it more closely resembles a rotational migrant worker system.

The TITP has also been criticised on human rights grounds, with many ‘interns’ incurring debt to access the program and facing heavy restrictions in changing employers. The panel has suggested that the TITP be renamed and formalised as an entry point to the SSW system, abandoning the pretext of ‘skills transfer’ and making it easier for workers to change employers. This proposal is yet to be adopted into policy.

The Kishida administration has opted for incrementalism on immigration. While Kishida has mentioned the need to ‘consider a society featuring co-existence with foreigners’, he has generally avoided the topic in major policy speeches, as there is simply no political necessity for him to do otherwise. If current systems are sufficient for Japan to address its labour shortages, it is unnecessary to open the potential can of worms that a national conversation on immigration would represent. Still, the absence of a formal immigration policy means that foreign workers will continue to suffer from subpar policy outcomes.

Japan has a structural demand for foreign workers, but one major question going forward is whether there is sufficient supply. The countries from which foreign workers migrate, such as Vietnam, have experienced strong post-pandemic economic growth while the Japanese yen has weakened and wages have stagnated. As such, Japan’s attractiveness as a destination country for foreign workers has diminished.

Broader regional trends suggest that foreign labour migration to Japan will not continue to increase indefinitely and the potential effects of this will be felt by a future administration. One way to address a potential bottleneck in foreign labour supply is to boost Japan’s attractiveness by improving labour conditions, expanding pathways to permanent residence and family reunification and integrating foreigners into Japanese society — considerations that a formal immigration policy could address. But despite recent calls to pass a national ‘Immigration Act’, it is unlikely that the Kishida administration will do so. Until such a time, Kishida’s incrementalism looks set to continue.

Source : East Asia Forum

The post Why Won’t Kishida Adopt a Formal Immigration Policy? appeared first on Policy Print.

In the wake of Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel, former President Donald Trump is turning to a strategy he employed during the 2016 campaign of using terror abroad – and fears of future attacks on American soil – to push for hard-line immigration policies in the United States.

During a Monday rally in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, Trump renewed his pledge to reinstate his controversial travel ban that targeted predominantly Muslim countries as he sought to link the ongoing conflict in Israel and Gaza with US border security. He also asserted, without evidence, that the “same people” perpetrating violent attacks in Israel were entering the US through “our totally open southern border,” before speculating that some people crossing the border may be planning an “attack” on the US.

The former president’s rhetoric harks back to his 2016 presidential campaign and his first term in office, when he used fears over terror attacks stateside to block immigrants and refugees from predominantly Muslim countries.

During the 2016 cycle, Trump’s campaign called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” in the wake of the December 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, by suspected ISIS sympathizers. He also condemned the Obama administration’s approach to combating ISIS after then-President Barack Obama declared that the terrorist organization had been “contained” one day before the group claimed responsibility for a series of deadly coordinated attacks throughout Paris in November 2015.

“We have leadership who doesn’t know what they’re doing,” Trump said after those attacks.

Within days of taking office in January 2017, Trump signed an executive order for the initial travel ban, which blocked citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries – Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – from entering the country for 90 days.

The ban sparked protests at airports across the country and drew several legal challenges. The Supreme Court upheld the third iteration of the ban in 2018. President Joe Biden revoked the travel ban after he took office in 2021.

Since launching his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has vowed to bring the ban back if elected and to expand it to include “communists and Marxists.”

Trump argued Monday that such a ban would prevent attacks similar to the ones launched in Israel over the weekend by the Palestinian militant group Hamas from happening in the US.

Trump is not the first Republican candidate to link terrorism fears and border security. Republicans raised fears of ISIS terrorists crossing into the US from the southern border during the 2014 midterm elections. Ahead of the 2018 midterms, Trump asserted, without evidence, that migrant caravans heading to the US from Central America had “unknown Middle Easterners” mixed in with the groups.

This election cycle, GOP candidates have been focused on a different threat: fentanyl. Some Republican presidential hopefuls have said they would use military force to combat drug trafficking at the border and vowed to address China’s role in producing the chemicals that cartels use to manufacture the drug. But a few candidates have joined Trump in drawing parallels between the attacks in Israel and safety in the US.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that people who intend to harm Americans might cross the southern border.

“You have to recognize that if that can happen in Israel, what do you think can happen in our country with an open border where 7 million people at a minimum have come through illegally?” he said at a campaign stop in Pocahontas, Iowa.

Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has also sought to tie Israel’s war with Hamas to US-Mexico border policy.

“What we read about in the papers is how could this have happened with the intelligence failures and the security that Israel has on its own borders,” Ramaswamy said Sunday in Manchester, New Hampshire. “And those are important questions that are yet to be answered and will hopefully be answered in the coming weeks. But the No. 1 self-reflection of this country is that if it can happen over there, it can certainly happen over here in this country.”

In a social media post Tuesday, Ramaswamy wrote that America “should use the attacks on Israel as a wake-up call” and said he plans to visit the US-Mexico border on Friday.

Most of the Republican presidential candidates have focused their response to the Hamas attacks on hammering the Biden administration for the recent prisoner release deal with Iran, which included the transfer of $6 billion in Iranian frozen funds.

Trump asserted Monday that the deal had caused the current violence in Israel, in addition to money Iran has made in oil sales and “our country’s perceived weakness with an incompetent and corrupt leader.”

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said it was “irresponsible” for US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to not link the Hamas attack to the prisoner release deal.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott accused the Biden administration of being “complicit” in the attack and called on Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to testify on the $6 billion transfer before the Senate Banking Committee, on which he is the top Republican.

And DeSantis announced Tuesday that he is planning to roll out legislation during Florida’s upcoming legislative session to increase sanctions on Iran and block Iranian business in the state.

The Biden administration has said that funds from the prisoner release deal went directly to Qatar, and Iran can only access the funds for humanitarian purposes.

Source : CNN

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WASHINGTON — Implementing a portfolio of programs and policies to reduce intergenerational poverty would yield a high payoff for children and the entire nation, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The report examines the key drivers of intergenerational poverty in the U.S. and concludes that evidence-based policies — such as increasing K-12 spending for underfunded districts, expanding occupational training programs, increasing access to the Medicaid program, and expanding the earned income tax credit — appear likely to lessen the chances that children living in poverty will experience poverty as adults.  

Intergenerational poverty occurs when children who grow up in families with incomes below the poverty line are themselves poor as adults. Among U.S. children born around 1980 who grew up in households with incomes near or below the poverty line, 34 percent were still living in low-income households when they were in their 30s. Rates of intergenerational poverty are much higher for Black (37%) and Native American (46%) children than other children. Contemporary and historical disparities, discrimination, and structural racism create further challenges for Black and Native American families in establishing economic security for their children.  

“The costs of persistent intergenerational poverty fall not just on individuals and families with low incomes but on society as a whole,” said Greg Duncan, distinguished professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “Intergenerational poverty reduces overall economic output and places increased burdens on the educational, criminal justice, and health care systems. Our report sifts through decades of evidence to point to our ‘best bets’ for overcoming these challenges.”  

Child and Maternal Health and Welfare

Children in families with low incomes have worse health than other children, a disparity that begins before birth and increases as children grow older. There is a strong association between growing up in a single-parent family and experiencing childhood poverty. Income and poverty are also highly correlated with child maltreatment and involvement in the child welfare system. The report suggests that increasing funding for Title X family planning programs and ensuring that Medicaid beneficiaries have access to family planning services are promising policy changes for reducing intergenerational poverty. The report also concludes that expanding access to Medicaid with continuous 12-month eligibility and 12-month post-partum coverage and expanding access to Indian Health Services for all eligible mothers and children are likely to reduce intergenerational poverty.  

Education

Children from low-income families start school with lower levels of academic and social skills than other children, on average, and these gaps do not close as they progress through school. Large gaps in school achievement and completed schooling also persist across racial and ethnic subgroups. The report concludes that there is strong support for reducing intergenerational poverty through increasing K-12 spending in the poorest school districts, increasing the diversity of the teaching workforce, boosting campus supports like tutoring and case management, and expanding high-quality career and technical education programs in high schools and after. Intergenerational poverty could also be reduced through effective financial aid programs for college students with low incomes and expanding industry-specific training programs for youth and young adults.  

Neighborhood Safety and Criminal Justice

Individuals with low incomes are most likely to report being victims of crime in their neighborhoods and schools, and incarceration rates disproportionately affect children in families with low incomes. In addition, the report says, juvenile detention lowers the rate of high school completion and increases the likelihood of experiencing incarceration as an adult. Rigorous research shows that neighborhood violent crime can be reduced through community investments and engagement, certain kinds of policing, and gun safety regulations.

Family Income, Employment, and Wealth

Low wages, earnings, and income perpetuate the cycle of economic disadvantage. Evidence suggests that income transfer programs during childhood and adolescence have the potential to improve children’s educational and labor market attainment, as well as physical health, in adulthood. Studies examining policy changes over the past 30 years of positive intergenerational impacts provide the strongest evidence for expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

Housing

Intergenerational poverty is linked with high lead levels, homelessness, overcrowding, frequent moves, and high housing costs in childhood. The report concludes that expanding coverage of the Housing Choice Voucher program, coupled with customized counseling and case management services, would support a reduction in intergenerational poverty.

Recommendation for Further Research

The report identifies a number of programs and policies that appeared to be effective in reducing intergenerational poverty, but high-quality evidence on the intergenerational impacts of many other promising programs is lacking. Improving existing census, survey, and administrative data — linked for families over time and across subject domains — would be invaluable for promoting needed policy research on intergenerational mobility. Specifically, the report recommends that the White House Office of Management and Budget facilitate research on economic opportunity, intergenerational poverty, and related topics and that the federal government make available existing census, survey, and administrative data to researchers, in ways that respect and protect the confidentiality of respondents’ data. 

The study — undertaken by the Committee on Policies and Programs to Reduce Intergenerational Poverty — was sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Bainum Family Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation, Foundation for Child Development, National Academy of Sciences W.K. Kellogg Fund, Russell Sage Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.  

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, engineering, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln.  

Source : National Academies

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The Wall Street Journal exclusively and convincingly reported on Sunday that Iran helped plot the ongoing military attack against Israel “over several weeks.” The facts of the Journal’s report utterly undercut Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s assertion over the weekend that there is no direct evidence of Iranian complicity in Hamas’s attack on Israel.

His denial is no longer plausible. It should by now be clear that U.S. foreign policy toward Iran needs a thorough reassessment.

The current policy is based on wishful thinking and false assumptions about Iran’s long-term involvement with Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Iranian-directed attack on Israel is part of a global plan intended to undermine U.S. national security by diminishing our most important ally in the region and sending a chilling message to partners worldwide that America is stumbling in the geopolitical landscape.

Events should induce President Biden, the State Department and all U.S. agencies to abandon the conviction that Iran is reformable. Iran cannot be appeased with monetary gifts, sanctions relief or nuclear concessions. In fact, all of these gestures have been and are counterproductive. In fact, the carrot-and-stick approach used since 2009 has been an all-around failure.

Unbeknownst to most Americans, the Biden administration has chosen only to partially enforce American sanctions against Iran.  This has allowed Iran to prosper through oil shipments to China in the naive hope that this will make Iran more willing to pause development of nuclear weapons. You can connect the dots from U.S. sanctions largesse and relief to Iranian monetary support of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.

Not only must maximum sanctions be enforced, but America and the West need secondary sanctions against nations that circumvent them. Those who say that sanctions don’t work never tell you that we have not fully enforced them. They also make the mistake of using an impatient Western timeline to judge success.

As for U.S. policy concerning the Israeli situation in the south with Hamas, an American-designated terrorist organization, Biden’s initial unconditional rhetorical support must translate to long-term support of a sustained Israeli operation, particularly when the anti-Israel wing in Congress raises its voice to advocate for a ceasefire before Israel can accomplish its goals.

American goals should be aligned with Israel’s regarding Hamas and, more importantly, the Iranian puppet-masters behind it. President Barack Obama tried creating “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel, to endear ourselves to the Iranian dictatorship. The results of this experiment should by now be clear enough.

Unfortunately, educating a polarized America about the true nature of Hamas and why there is a war today is incredibly difficult. For example, a New York Times article referred to a “blockaded” Gaza without context, due to its editorial bent. When Israel left 100 percent of Gaza in 2005, the Palestinians could have chosen to become Hong Kong on the Mediterranean, with open borders and relations with Israel. Instead, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas chose terrorism and poverty.

That is why, for reference, the Times chooses not to educate readers with quotes from the Hamas Charter, a blatantly anti-Semitic document calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. From the beginning, The Times conflated Israeli civilian casualties with Palestinian terrorist totals, deliberately obscuring the facts of the conflict.

Can the administration swim against the tide, when the war becomes confusing and parties revert to their echo chambers? The truth is the first casualty of war, and already, parties are taking advantage of the fog of war to advance agendas.

Elliot Abrams’s advice in National Review offers a much better path. “It would be far better to see Republicans and Democrats realize and say the obvious: The world is a very dangerous place, and when our friends and allies are attacked, we will have their backs. That’s the message we want Hamas, Hezbollah, their backers in Iran, and their partners in Russia and China to receive.”

The only question now is whether Biden and Blinken can rise to the challenge, overcome partisan interests and entrenched thinking and reassess the U.S. relationship with Iran in a rational and fact-based manner.

Source : The Hill

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