It’s Black Friday and the new government coalition parties have signed up for a mixed bunch of bargains.

New Zealand First and ACT leaders Winston Peters and David Seymour will take turns as Deputy Prime Minister and Nicola Willis will be Finance Minister.

Peters will be Minister of Foreign Affairs and Seymour Minister for Regulation.

The next cabinet will have 20 members; 14 National ministers, three ACT ministers and three New Zealand First ministers.

The most notable rise will be of Tama Potaka who was elected to Hamilton West only last year in a byelection . He will jump ahead of many more experienced MPs to become Minister of Conservation, Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti, Minister for Māori Development, Minister for Whānau Ora, Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing)

In terms of ministers outside Cabinet, there will be five from National, two from ACT and one from New Zealand First.

ACT and New Zealand First will each have one parliamentary under-secretary.

National’s foreign buyers tax will not go ahead, NZ First has secured a $1.2 billion regional infrastructure fund, and David Seymour’s Treaty referendum is out v with the new government instead to support a Treaty principles bill to select committee stage. Charter schools are back, light rail and Let’s Get Wellington Moving is gone.

ACT’s policy for a Minister for Regulation will be accompanied by the disestablishment of the current Productivity Commission. Firearms laws will also be reformed.

The three parties have unveiled the details of their coalition agreements this morning, with National making separate coalition agreements with each of its partner parties.

New Prime Minister Chris Luxon thanked New Zealanders for their “patience and understanding in the wait for this government to be formed over the last 20 days”.

“The new government is looking forward to working with you and to delivering the government’s programme and to getting things done for Kiwis.”

“The negotiation process has been diligent; it’s been focused, and it’s been purposeful. Our aim has simply been not to form a government but to form a strong and stable government that gets thing done for Kiwis.

The two coalition agreements and ministerial appointments can be found on the National Party’s news page here.

Developments in te ao Māori from the National- NZ First deal include:

• • Remove co-governance from the delivery of public services.
• •As a matter of urgency, issue a Cabinet Office circular to all central government organisations that it is the government’s expectation that public services should be prioritised on the basis of need, not race.
• • Restore the right to local referendum on the establishment or ongoing use of Māori wards, including requiring a referendum on any wards established without referendum at the next Local Body elections.
• •Stop all work on He Puapua.
• •Confirm that the Coalition Government does not recognise the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as having any binding legal effect on New Zealand.
• •Amend section 58 of the Marine and Coastal Area Act to make clear Parliament’s original intent, in light of the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Whakatohea Kotahitanga Waka (Edwards) & Ors v Te Kahui and Whakatohea Maori Trust Board & Ors [2023] NZCA 504.
• •Amend the Waitangi Tribunal legislation to refocus the scope, purpose, and nature of its inquiries back to the original intent of that legislation.
• • Conduct a comprehensive review of all legislation (except when it is related to, or substantive to, existing full and final Treaty settlements) that includes “The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” and replace all such references with specific words relating to the relevance and application of the Treaty, or repeal the references
• •Legislate to make English an official language of New Zealand.
• • Ensure all public service departments have their primary name in English, except for those specifically related to Māori.
• • Require the public service departments and Crown entities to communicate primarily in English – except those entities specifically related to Māori.
• • Protect freedom of speech by ruling out the introduction of hate speech legislation and stop the Law Commission’s work on hate speech legislation.
• •Abolish the Māori Health Authority
• •The Government will not change the official name of New Zealand.

Developments in the te ao Māori from the National- ACT deal will include:

• • Remove Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989.
• • Create a truly independent monitoring and oversight agency for Oranga Tamariki.
• • Improve the rights and responsibilities of caregivers to give them more autonomy.
• • Increase devolution of care decisions to relevant community organisations.
• • Remove co-governance from the delivery of public services.
• • Ensure government contracts are awarded based on value, without racial discrimination.
• • Issue a Cabinet Office circular to all central government organisations that it is the Government’s expectation that public services should be prioritised on the basis of need, not race, within the first six months of Government.
• • Repeal the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Act 2022.
• • Restore the right to local referendum on the establishment or ongoing use of Māori wards, including requiring a referendum on any wards established without referendum at the next local body elections.
• •Pass the Constitution (Enabling a 4-Year Term) Amendment Bill through first reading in the first 15 months of the term.
• • Introduce a Treaty Principles Bill based on existing ACT polcy and support it to a Select Committee as soon as practicable.
• •No Three Waters (with assets returned to council ownership).
• •Pro-democracy – upholding the principles of liberal democracy, including equal citizenship, parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law and property rights, especially with respect to interpreting the Treaty of Waitangi

Source : TE AO News

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Argentina on Sunday chose a new president and a new course, pivoting away from decades of Peronist policy domestically and, if new president-elect Javier Milei sticks to his campaign rhetoric, toward a new neighborhood policy that might jolt Latin America and a new foreign policy in the Middle East and toward China.  

The results of the presidential election runoff were not surprising, knowing the depth of the anger of the electorate at the economic crisis in the country. Inflation has hit 140 percent and poverty affects 40 percent of the population, while a $44 billion debt program with the International Monetary Fund did not even scratch the surface of solving the problems of Argentina. 

People wanted and demanded change, even if it came in the form of a right-wing populist and self-described “anarcho-capitalist,” who even brandished a chainsaw during the election campaign, vowing to cut the government down to size. An economist and former TV personality, Milei won with 56 percent of the vote, compared to the 44 percent of his opponent, the current Economy Minister Sergio Massa. He promised Argentines that there is “no room for lukewarm measures” and vowed to purge the government of corrupt establishment politicians. 

His platform is very radical even for Argentines, who are willing to forgive his style for the sake of change and a new beginning. He has said he will dollarize the economy, abandoning the national currency, the peso; eliminate the central bank; shut down the ministries of education and health; privatize the state-controlled energy firm YPF, after making it better to get a good price; and privatize the state-owned media, which he described as “a covert ministry of propaganda” as it gave him negative coverage during the campaign. Sound familiar? 

The incoming Argentine president is an admirer of former American President Donald Trump and some see a resemblance between them, including the mop of hair. He is even referred to as the “Trump of Argentina.” He is also a friend of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and both congratulated him, with Trump telling Milei: “You will make Argentina great again.” Bolsonaro said: “You represent a lot for Brazil.” 

However, Argentina’s relationships with its two largest trading partners, Brazil and China, seem to be heading into uncharted waters with Milei’s presidency. During his campaign, he attacked Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, calling him an “angry communist” and a “socialist with a totalitarian vocation,” prompting a Brazilian official to demand an apology before any talks between the two leaders can start. 

The president-elect softened his position on some domestic measures in the last days of the campaign, such as retreating from his vow to abolish the ministries of education and health, signaling that reality might sink in and a more pragmatic approach might be contemplated, especially as his party does not control the Congress and he cannot pass any of his promised measures without its approval.  

The question is though, how will he handle his relationship with Brazil, or any of his Latin American neighbors, especially since some of them did not hide their disappointment at his election? 

The biggest change from Argentina’s previous policies is predicted to be in his China policy. The president-elect advocated during the campaign breaking off relations with Beijing in favor of ties with “the civilized side of the world,” meaning the West. His Middle East policy might also bring a sea change to Argentina’s traditional policy for the region.  

China is the second-largest trading partner of Argentina and their relationship has warmed recently, with Beijing investing billions of dollars in projects in different sectors of the economy. China even helped the country avoid default by offering a $6.5 billion loan to help it make its debt payments one month before the elections, according to Bloomberg.  

The growing relationship between Argentina and China was a matter of concern in Washington, especially after Buenos Aires joined the Belt and Road Initiative in 2022 and accepted the invitation to join BRICS next year.  

The Chinese have expanded their influence in Latin America with the billions invested in the region through its Belt and Road Initiative. Seven countries in South America were participating in the initiative as of 2022, with projects ranging from the construction of infrastructure to energy, challenging the US in its backyard.  

According to World Economic Forum figures, trade between China and Latin America grew 26-fold between 2000 and 2020, increasing from $12 billion to $315 billion. It is expected to double by 2035, reaching more than $700 billion, which is about the same as the current trade between China and the US.  

According to the House Foreign Affairs Committee website on China’s influence in South America, in 2021 alone, Chinese state-owned companies “funded $11.3 billion worth of projects in South American countries.” But the committee adds that the “US still provides more foreign direct investment in Argentina than any other country, totaling $131.6 billion in the past decade.”

Other Chinese projects in Argentina have added to the anxiety in Washington, such as talks on setting up a port in the southern Tierra del Fuego province, as well as the satellite tracking station in Patagonia that Reuters has referred to as a Chinese “military-run space station” and a “black box.” 

Washington was not a mere spectator in all of this. It has continued to seek close relations with Argentina to counter China’s influence. Argentine President Alberto Fernandez visited Washington earlier this year and, after a visit to Argentina, Colombia and Brazil by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, these countries all signed NASA’s Artemis Accords. Nelson was clear when he talked about the motive, as he noted “all of these countries have had entreaties from the Chinese government.” And, with Argentina in particular, he said the US wanted to “keep the ties, the information, flowing between our two countries.” 

Milei might try to decouple from China, as he promised, but experts echo what a Chinese spokesman said after the elections — that such a move would be “a serious mistake” on Argentina’s part.  

Both the US and China today need Argentina for a precious resource: lithium, which they need because it is essential for electric cars and the energy transition. Argentina has one of the world’s largest lithium reserves and it needs trading partners to get out of its economic crisis. Milei might soon learn that it is better for Argentina to keep all its options open.  

Milei’s platform is very radical even for Argentines, who are willing to forgive his style for the sake of change.

Dr. Amal Mudallali

Meanwhile, Argentina’s Middle East policy appears to be heading for a sharp turn toward Israel. Milei reportedly said that he plans to travel to the US and Israel before he takes office on Dec. 10. American and Israeli media outlets have written about his close ties to rabbis in Miami and New York, as well as his spiritual attachment to and his admiration of Israel.  

He has reportedly considered converting to Judaism and has supported Israel’s right to self-defense during its attack on Gaza. He has often waved Israeli flags at his campaign rallies. He has previously said he wants to move the Argentine Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, following in Trump’s footsteps, according to Politico. 

With Argentina’s turn to the right, the great power competition between China and the US is reminding people that America never likes to be challenged in its backyard. During their last debate, Republican presidential hopefuls spoke about reviving the Monroe Doctrine, which holds that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers is a potentially hostile act. The Dallas Morning News warned that “reviving the Monroe doctrine is a dangerous idea” and cautioned that the Republican candidates’ posturing “will push Latin America into China’s arms.” Countering China’s influence is a bipartisan issue in Washington and Latin America will find that out soon.  

Source : Arab News

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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

The post Trump Again Uses Terror Abroad to Make Case for Hard-Line Immigration Policies appeared first on Policy Print.

Dr. Morrison studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate stem cell function and the role these mechanisms play in cancer. His laboratory pioneered methods to purify stem cells from multiple tissues and discovered mechanisms that allow stem cells to persist throughout life to regenerate tissues after injury. His laboratory discovered key mechanisms that regulate stem cell self-renewal as well as the location and cellular composition of specialized microenvironments that promote the maintenance of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) in adult blood-forming tissues.

Fiona Watt, EMBO Director, said of the newly elected members who reside in more than 20 countries: “These remarkable scientists have unraveled molecular secrets of life, deepened our understanding of health and disease, and are paving the way for further discoveries and innovations. Their achievements reinforce the critical role that life science research plays in the lives of citizens across Europe and the world.”

Dr. Morrison, one of 26 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and one of 19 members of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, joins the EMBO community of more than 2,000 leading life science experts, including 91 Nobel laureates who have been elected to EMBO Membership. New EMBO members are elected by existing EMBO members. The new members will be formally welcomed to EMBO at the annual Members’ Meeting in Heidelberg, Germany, on October 25-27, 2023.

The Morrison Lab studies the intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms that regulate stem cell self-renewal and the role these mechanisms play in cancer. Self-renewal is the process by which stem cells divide to make more stem cells, perpetuating stem cells throughout life to regenerate tissues.

Dr. Morrison’s team discovered a series of key regulators that distinguish stem cell self-renewal from the proliferation of restricted progenitors in the same tissues. He also identified ways in which self-renewal mechanisms change with age, conferring temporal changes in stem cell properties that match the changing growth and regeneration demands of tissues.

In terms of cell-extrinsic mechanisms, Dr. Morrison identified the location and cellular composition of HSC niches in adult bone marrow and spleen and discovered the Leptin Receptor+ perivascular stromal cells that are the major source of factors required for HSC maintenance in the bone marrow. Researchers demonstrated that HSCs are metabolically distinct from restricted progenitors in vivo and depend upon metabolic regulation for epigenetic control and leukemia suppression.

His lab further discovered that distant metastasis by melanoma cells is limited by oxidative stress and that successfully metastasizing melanoma cells undergo reversible metabolic changes to cope with oxidative stress. They are working to test whether “pro-oxidant” therapies that exacerbate oxidative stress in cancer cells can be used to inhibit cancer progression.

Dr. Morrison served as president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (2015-2016) and has been active in public policy issues surrounding stem cell research. He is also a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) Scholar in Cancer Research and a member of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Morrison holds the Kathryne and Gene Bishop Distinguished Chair in Pediatric Research at Children’s Research Institute at UT Southwestern at CRI and the Mary McDermott Cook Chair in Pediatric Genetics. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Dr. Morrison completed a B.Sc. in biology and chemistry at Dalhousie University in 1991, a Ph.D. in immunology at Stanford University in 1996, and a postdoctoral fellowship in neurobiology at Caltech in 1999.

About CRI

Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) is a joint venture of UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Medical Center Dallas, the flagship hospital of Children’s Health. CRI’s mission is to perform transformative biomedical research to better understand the biological basis of disease. Located in Dallas, Texas, CRI is home to interdisciplinary groups of scientists and physicians pursuing research at the interface of regenerative medicine, cancer biology and metabolism. For more information, visit: cri.utsw.edu. To support CRI, visit: give.childrens.com/about-us/why-help/cri/.

Source: UT South Western

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday chaired a meeting of the Union Council of Ministers at the newly built convention centre at Pragati Maidan, which will host the G20 Leaders Summit on September 9-10, discussing policy-related issues.

“A fruitful meeting with the Council of Ministers, where we exchanged views on diverse policy related issues,” Modi tweeted soon after the four-hour meeting concluded.

“In today’s meeting, topics like Vision 2047, development works, steps to take India forward and infrastructure development were discussed,” Union minister Meenakshi Lekhi told the media afterward.

In these meetings, some ministries generally give a presentation about their work, with the PM sharing his views.

Monday’s meeting comes amid a heightened buzz about a likely Cabinet reshuffle following a series of meetings of the BJP’s leadership. On June 28, Modi held a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP president J P Nadda and party’s organisational secretary B L Santhosh, among others, to take stock of organisational and political affairs. The BJP has been making hectic preparations for several state elections scheduled this year, including those in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Mizoram.

Sources said that during Monday’s meeting, the PM spoke in detail about his recent official trips to the US and Egypt. “There was also a presentation about those visits,” they said.

Modi spoke in detail about the upcoming G20 Summit and the need for every minister to take it seriously, sources said. He is learnt to have reiterated that the government is focusing on the 2047 road map, when India completes 100 years of Independence, specifically mentioning infrastructure development in this context.

According to sources, two Powerpoint presentations were made during the meeting: on the infrastructure sector and capital expenditure, and on ‘India 2047’ vision.

If a Cabinet reshuffle is to be effected, the period before Parliament’s monsoon session, which begins July 20, could be the last window for such an exercise. Sources said Modi may effect changes in his ministry to “infuse freshness” in departments that have not performed up to his expectations. Changes also help the government remove the fatigue factor, they said.

Speculation is rife that the BJP leadership is considering bringing in some senior leaders from its state units to the Centre — both in the government and the party.

With the Opposition likely to raise the issue of Uniform Civil Code (UCC) to corner the government during the upcoming monsoon session, Lekhi earlier in the day called UCC a welcome step and said the country’s women deserve equality. “It’s a welcome step and I am glad that it has been done when our government is there… women of this country deserve equality and justice, irrespective of which religion they come from..,” she said.

Among the legislation expected in the short session — likely to have 17 working days — are the much-awaited Digital Personal Data Protection Bill and the Forest Conservation (Amendment) Bill, besides the Bill to replace the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Ordinance.

Lekhi also said the monsoon session will start in the old Parliament building, and “as and when” the new building is ready, the session will be moved there.

Source: Indian Express

The post PM Modi Discusses Policy Issues With Ministers appeared first on Policy Print.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said that Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe has provided a thorough explanation of issues surrounding his declaration in respect of the 2016 General Election campaign.

He added that “SIPO should now be allowed carry out their investigation and the minister allowed due process while he engages with SIPO on this matter.”

Yesterday, Mr Donohoe said that he updated his election expenses statement to the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) after reviewing his records.

The minister also said he is to recuse himself from policy decisions related to the progression of ethics legislation.

The Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform will for now take responsibility issues related to SIPO.

Mr Donohoe has maintained that services provided by six people to his campaign did not meet the threshold required to be declared as a donation.

The services relate to putting up and taking down electoral posters, which he said he believed had been voluntary.

Earlier, Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin rowed in behind her Government colleague saying he had shown immense regret in relation to the declaration of expenses issue.

Speaking at a tourism event this morning, Minister Martin said that Mr Donohoe had also recused himself from matters relating to the Standards in Public Office while a complaint against him is examined.

She said he had spoken to the leaders of the three coalition parties and had made a detailed public statement on the matter.

However, Sinn Féin has called on Minister Donohoe to provide further clarity on the issue.

Sinn Féin TD and member of the Oireachtas Committee on Members’ Interests of Dáil Éireann Louise O’Reilly said she does not believe that Mr Donohoe has fully explained the details of undeclared election campaign costs.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, she said: “He needs to come out and provide an explanation as to the questions that still remain to be answered around the donations.

“We know that the minister was advised in 2017 about the use of a vehicle. He was at that stage the minister with direct responsibility for SIPO, he didn’t amend the record in 2017.

“He was contacted again by the media in November. In November he said to the media ‘absolutely nothing to see here’ and yet yesterday we see him at a very hastily convened press conference.”

Ms O’Reilly said she wants to know why Minister Donohoe did not amend the record in 2017 and why he said in November last year that “there was nothing see here”.

She also said Sinn Féin wants to know who the six workers are.

“We want to know about those workers. Who were they working for.

“We are talking about six people, putting up over 1,000 posters….and it’s clear that a donation was made and it wasn’t declared.

“So, I suppose we need to hear from the minster as to whether or not he is satisfied that that donation wasn’t made to his campaign, because to me it was the minister’s face on the posters, it was the minister’s campaign and it looks like the donation was made to his campaign and I think he needs to clarify that.”

Ms O’Reilly said the issues around Mr Donohoe’s undeclared election campaign costs is “coming very very quickly after the resignation of another Fine Gael minister, which comes very, very quickly after the resignation of a Fianna Fáil minister” which she said speaks to the fact that this Government has been in office for far too long.

“To me, it’s baffling to think that a donation would be made in the teeth of an election campaign, providing campaign work that somehow is not considered an election expense,” she said.

Asked if she is calling for the minister to step down, Ms O’Reilly said she is looking for Minister Donohoe to come out today and make a comprehensive statement and address the questions that he failed to address yesterday.

Meanwhile, Independent TD for Kildare South Cathal Berry said Mr Donohoe has given a “fairly comprehensive press statement” and has offered to make a statement to the Dáil.

Also speaking on Morning Ireland, he said that would be “appropriate and very, very helpful”.

“But from my own perspective, there’s a SIPO investigation going on at the moment, and I think we should give them the space and time to conduct their investigation.

“There’s no point in having an investigation if you’re going to prejudge the outcome.

“The main issue for me is that he’s made an offer to make a comprehensive statement to the Dáil that would be appropriate, and he can flesh out any further issues there,” he added.

Labour’s Spokesperson on Public Expenditure and Reform and Finance Ged Nash said Minister Donohoe addressed some issues yesterday, but it would be helpful if he addressed the Dáil and gave a more complete account of not just what happened over the last few weeks, “but the whole history of this going back to 2016”.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne, he said: “There are some very significant outstanding questions that I think the minister does have to answer and I think he will accept that himself.”

Mr Nash said that as this issue moves on and if it is a case where the minister finds himself again amending the donation declaration that he made to SIPO in 2016, then more serious questions will have to be answered.

Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment Neale Richmond said the situation is far from ideal and the last couple of days have been difficult for the Government, but Minister Donohoe has shown a willingness and a clarity to work closely with SIPO to get to the bottom of this.

Mr Richmond said that since November, more things had been brought to light and that is why the minister moved to address the issue.

Speaking on the same programme, he acknowledged that overall, the issue is extremely damaging and “we need to rectify it as a Government and as individual representatives”.

Source : rte

The post Donohoe gave thorough explanation over expenses – Tánaiste appeared first on Policy Print.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, at least in the U.S. policy community, that international politics has entered a new era of “great power competition.”

It shows in the number of instances of the phrase in books, which nearly doubled between 2012 and 2019, according to Google Books. The phrase had a particular moment when the Trump administration released its inaugural National Security Strategy in 2017, which declared that “after being dismissed as a phenomenon of an earlier century, great power competition has returned.” The consensus has persisted and deepened, declared in think tank reports from across the political spectrum. Though the Biden administration tried to switch to the terminology of “strategic competition” and “major powers,” the sentiment is the same.

From the start, the phrase has been fuzzy, and it has rarely been clear just who counts as a “great power.” The United States is a given. China is always a looming peer rival. Russia crops up from time to time, though in inconsistent ways. For instance, that 2017 National Security Strategy shifts from asserting that Russia “seeks to restore its great power status” to just a couple pages later actualizing that goal for Moscow by identifying it as a great power rival alongside China. Though great power competition has conventionally referred to rivalries between states, the European Union is also occasionally floated as an emerging pole in this new multipolar world.

This is an oddly disparate collection of actors in want of a definition. If the term “great power” has meaning, it is because these actors are somehow different from other, less powerful states. They perceive their interests differently and behave differently than, say, a “regional power,” a “middle power,” or any of those states that are politely but condescendingly called “small powers.” But trying to define great power status is difficult in ways that are evident from the mismatched assortment of candidates that emerge in the recent literature. Power varies across issues and domains in ways that are glossed over when international politics is reduced to great power competition. It can be a convenient shorthand, but policymakers should not lose track of the nuances: Who counts as a great power may vary from issue to issue.

Too Many Definitions

While the policy community might have put too little thought into defining great power status, the academic community has arguably done too much. The literature on great power competition is vast and impossible to survey in its entirety, and it seems that each author has their own addendum to the definition of great power status. But there are certain core criteria.

At a minimum, there’s a security requirement: A great power is any country that could mount a serious defense against any other country in the world—even if it might not defeat the other country, it could force a war of attrition. In a world of nuclear-armed countries, nuclear weapons are a necessary but insufficient condition for great power status (so North Korea doesn’t qualify). Some scholars, like the late Nuno Monteiro, have argued that this is still too encompassing a definition and argued for an “offensive” criterion; in addition to being able to defend capably against any rival, a great power must also be able to “engage unaided in sustained politico-military operations in at least one other relevant region of the globe beyond its own on a level similar to the most powerful state in the system.” Great powers, under this definition, possess international reach and the capacity for unilateral action. This winnows the field considerably—Monteiro uses it to make the case that the United States is the sole great power in a unipolar world, though others may qualify depending on the scale of the intervention. After all, France recently concluded a limited but long-term intervention in Mali, Russian proxies have done similar work throughout Africa, and China’s expanding military footprint has increased its ability to project force.

Other definitions look beyond just military capacity. As Kenneth Waltz, author of “Theory of International Politics” and godfather of neorealist international relations theory, stipulated, great powers must be able to not just ensure their security but also support that defense capacity over time. That requires territory that can be defended, an economy that can support the military and other essential government expenses, a population to staff the private sector and provide the national defense, and the political stability and competence for it all to function.

Other foundational authors introduce other criteria. Great power status, Jack Levy wrote, is not just about military capacity. It’s about how a country sees its place in the world. Great powers, in his definition, “define their national interests to include systemic interests and are therefore concerned with order maintenance in the international system.” Great power status, he argues, is also contingent on how a state is perceived by its peers and whether it is treated as “relative equals with respect to general attention, respect, protocol, negotiations, alliance agreements and so forth.” For example, high-status countries like the United Kingdom joining the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2015 affirms the perception of China as a great power, and Russia’s ouster from the Group of Eight in 2014 was a rebuke of Moscow’s great power aspirations. A great power must have the capacity for international action but must also consider itself an influential state with global interests and have that role and influence reflected back to it by its peers.

Measuring Power

All of these definitions still leave a lot of wiggle room for know-it-when-I-see-it-ism. The fundamental criterion of a capable defense is a hypothetical that hasn’t been observed since the development of nuclear weapons and would be disastrous if ever put to the test; in the absence of clear examples, policymakers and academics must rely on estimates of military capability that can sometimes prove shockingly inaccurate. And few of these definitions set clear thresholds. How much independent action abroad is necessary to qualify? How large must an economy be to underpin great power status? How global must a state’s national interests be, and what recognition counts from its peers?

When trying to quantify great power status, academics often rely on parsimonious proxy metrics that treat these essential conditions lightly. Studies focused on international security often use the Composite Index of National Capabilities (CINC), which assesses state capacity on the basis of six material components: the size of a country’s military, its military spending, its steel and iron consumption, its energy consumption, its total population, and its urban population. Others use gross domestic product (GDP) or GDP per capita as a rough indicator for state power. And while it’s true that economic size is often correlated with military size, research by Michael Beckley has suggested that GDP has historically been a poor predictor of actual military capacity (he argues that this is because GDP discounts the share of that economic product that must support the state’s citizenry, and that a more accurate metric would increase the salience of the size of a state’s population).

GDP is a particularly telling example for the ways that national-level statistics elide the nuances of the concepts usually cited in definitions of great power status. In 2014, the size of China’s GDP surpassed that of the United States when adjusted for purchasing power; breathless news coverage claiming a dramatic shift in the global balance of power has followed in waves every few years since. But there are many ways to assess GDP and varying predictions about the actual trendline. Just in the past year, estimates of when China would surpass the United States in nonadjusted GDP slipped from 2030, to 2035, to 2060 or maybe never. Clearly, a metric that indicates a 31 percent advantage for the United States when calculated one way and a 19 percent advantage for China when calculated another has a whopping margin of error for extrapolating what it indicates about overall state power. Not only are different versions of GDP inconsistent about rank order, the disparity between the United States and China is vast—and even greater for other actors sometimes included in discussions of great power competition. The entirety of the European Union has a combined economy comparable to that of China, but the largest economy in the eurozone, Germany, has an economy less than one-fifth the size of the United States’. Russia is an even greater outlier: It ranks 11th in the world in terms of GDP, with an economy less than one-tenth the size of the United States’. If that’s the threshold for great power status, the bar has been set very low.

Parsimonious national-level indicators lack important nuances, prompting the development of new metrics. A careful examination of measures of state power published by RAND in 2000 noted that, while CINC, GDP, and similar efforts to assess state power produce similar rank ordering of countries, they aren’t tailored to the factors that matter most in the postindustrial age—for instance, they say little about which countries excel in innovative research or best protect intellectual property, which are key determinants of the strength of a modern national economy. Other research has stressed the relativity of power and developed indicators, like the Foreign Bilateral Influence Capacity (FBIC) index, to assess power in specific relationships between pairs of states.

Great Powers and Relative Power

National-level statistics leave out the ways that power creates self-reinforcing institutions that grant powerful countries distinct advantages. The historical centrality of the United States and Western Europe to the international financial system has meant that many of the institutions that underpin international trade are under these countries’ jurisdiction. This has meant that the United States and its partners are better placed to observe international financial flows than other countries, and they can weaponize this position to isolate actors through imposing sanctions and cutting them off from the international financial network. This disproportionate power afforded the United States has irritated China and Russia, among other countries, but efforts to establish alternative networks to circumvent U.S. centrality have faltered. China’s counter to the SWIFT international banking system has limited reach, and efforts to evade sanctions through cryptocurrencies still face detection and legal penalties from the U.S. government. Institutions are sticky, slow to change, and almost never replaced in their entirety—but that institutional power baked into the international system is not reflected in any of the standard metrics of power.

Some recent research has deconstructed state power, looking at it by issue area. Russia and Saudi Arabia, for example, exert influence in oil markets disproportionate to their share of other indicators of state power, like their militaries and economies. They are great powers in terms of oil production. But even this comes with caveats. As Emily Meierding has noted, the exercise of that power in the domain of oil production intersects with other networks of power. The sale of oil requires engaging with international financial networks, in which the United States is the dominant power, and the energy transportation network, in which power is distributed across the countries transited by oil pipelines, China’s large tanker fleet, and the United States, which has an unparalleled capacity to monitor and control access to international sea lines of communication.

This approach to thinking about state power suggests other ways it can be broken down in other domains. Taiwan could be described as a semiconductor great power, China as a manufacturing great power, and these comparative advantages are enmeshed in networks of transit and exchange that have still other distributions of power. France, according to the FBIC index, is something of a diplomatic great power, punching further above its weight in diplomatic influence than its military and economy would suggest. This characterization of the international distribution of power restores nuance, but at the expense of simplicity. The great power competition it describes is one of context-specific powers that are great maybe only in one of a proliferating number of domains.

Great Power Competition in the 21st Century

The challenge for policymakers is to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and retain the ability to function. Great power competition is a characteristic of the international system as a whole, describing how countries perceive and interact with one another; it is also a characteristic of specific issue areas, and the cast of characters may look very different on an issue-by-issue basis than in the international system as a whole. Being able to shift between these two modes, though confusing, is an important check against sloppy thinking about which countries count as great powers.

The United States is a great power. It has the largest economy in the world in raw size and over the past 80 years has entrenched its central position in the international economic system. Its military is more capable and more distributed than any other in the world and is enmeshed as an essential part of many other countries’ national defense. Indeed, rather than the current consensus about the return of great power competition, there should be more debate about whether China is in the same category as the United States as a global power.

But the distribution of power is in flux. China’s power has certainly grown in the past two decades, and it is exerting greater regional influence—it may be a great power on some issues, and a regional power on others. Europe might be a great power on the issues on which it can act collectively, and a collection of middle and small powers on the issues on which it cannot. Including Russia as a great power in the international system, though, requires just too much conceptual stretching for my mind. As much as it may still rankle Vladimir Putin, President Obama was right to describe Russia as a “regional power” and a second-order actor in the global great power competition.

This is not a simple definition of what counts as a great power. There’s no litmus test or threshold—some minimum share of GDP or CINC score, though these can be helpful guides and are still part of the story. And that’s the point. Politics is relative, so the way policymakers think about the role of great powers in international politics should be, too.

Source : Law Fare Blog

The post Who Are You Calling a Great Power? appeared first on Policy Print.

China needs to move past political considerations and look at importing Covid-19 jabs to end the pandemic globally, according to the chief executive of the world’s latest vaccine manufacturer.

“They need to open themselves up to healthcare and vaccines from the West and set aside any political issues or things that are holding them back,” Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India, told CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

China has experienced a massive spike in Covid-19 cases and fatalities after abruptly ending its zero-Covid policy, which imposed strict lockdowns, mass testing and quarantine on arrival into the country.

China’s full Covid vaccination rate is nearly 87%, according to World Health Organization figures, which show 54% of the population has also been inoculated with a booster jab.

The main Covid vaccines approved for use in China are from Sinovac and Sinopharm. These jabs are less effective against the Omicron variant than are other mRNA vaccines, such as Pfizer and BioNTech’s, several studies have found.

Poonawalla said China’s pandemic reaction of 2020 — which included building hospitals and infrastructure and taking precautions — showed that Beijing could respond rapidly.

He stressed China’s decision not to import vaccines from the U.S., India and elsewhere, which have been “very effective.”

“I think they may have to really seriously look at doing that now, as a booster at least, and take vaccines which have proven, real-world data and efficacy,” he told CNBC. “Otherwise the alternative is that a lot of people in China are going to continue to get infected and we just hope — we wish them the best of luck in trying to manage that crisis and come out of it as soon as possible.”

He added that this also represents a global issue, given the number of people who want to travel to China for business or leisure, as well as the number of Chinese nationals who would be travelling overseas.

“We really need to end the pandemic and infection in every country, because we all need to be safe,” Poonawalla said.

“They’re [China] still making up their minds on which way they want to go and I hope it all ends quickly.”

The Pune-based Serum Institute of India produces more than 1.5 billion vaccine doses annually for various diseases. Poonawalla said that the company would be interested to provide vaccines to China, but that discussions with Beijing officials had been unsuccessful so far.

Source : CNBC

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