Alberta NDP, Indigenous leaders renew calls for Kenney to fire speechwriter over 2013 essay

Phil Heidenreich
2020-07-07

© Global News Alberta NDP Indigenous Relations Critic Richard Feehan speaks at a news conference in Edmonton on July 6, 2020.

Members of Alberta's official Opposition and some Indigenous leaders have renewed calls for Premier Jason Kenney to fire his speechwriter over a 2013 essay that was critical of how Indigenous issues are framed in Canada, and which argues the narrative around residential schools amounts to a "bogus genocide story."

"Today I asked the premier to take these calls seriously and remove Paul Bunner. He ignored me," Alberta NDP Indigenous Relations Critic Richard Feehan said at a news conference in Edmonton on Monday.

"Paul Bunner enjoys a highly-paid position of influence in our province as one of the premier's closest collaborators," he said. "Paul Bunner harbours a profound hatred and contempt for Indigenous people.


"Why won't the premier confront the racism in his own office today? This is shameful. Paul Bunner must be fired immediately."

Kenney has previously said that while he has not read the article in question, he has seen excerpts from it and that he fundamentally disagrees with them. However, in an interview with Global News last week, the premier said that although Bunner may have written things over the years that he disagrees with, "in virtually every product he's prepared for me, there is a deliberate effort to recognize the nobility of the First Nations."

Bunner has not spoken publicly since people began calling for his removal. Global News has twice attempted to reach him through the premier's office but not received a response to requests for interviews or statements.

Treaty 8 Grand Chief Arthur Noskey also spoke at Monday's news conference and said that he and other chiefs are "amazed at the level of disrespect brandished by Premier Kenney, who continues to employ an individual who has published anti-First Nations views that are harmful, divisive, dehumanizing and racist to say the least."

"[Bunner's essay] demeans First Nations' long fight for treaty and Aboriginal rights and goes on to disparage residential school experiences and survivors," he said. "This article in its entirety is unconscionable.

"How can Premier Kenney know about this article and overlook the harm it continues to cause... [his] acceptance of these articles demonstrates nothing but racism."

Noskey said he and other chiefs want to see Bunner removed from his current role and not be hired in any capacity by the government.

Despite Kenney vocalizing his disagreement with some of Bunner's writing, Noskey said "actions speak louder than words."

While a number of pieces Bunner has written over the years have come under scrutiny in recent weeks, an essay titled "The 'Genocide' That Failed," published in a right-wing online publication called the C2C Journal in 2013, has been at the centre of the criticism.

A spokesperson for Indigenous Relations Minister Rick Wilson told Global News that Bunner recently met with Wilton Littlechild, the former Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six, for a three-hour meeting that included "honest and forthright dialogue."

He said the meeting, which took place in Maskwacis, was set up by Wilson.

Global News has attempted to reach out to Littlechild via the Confederacy of Treaty Six and Bunner through the premier's office for their thoughts on the meeting.

Adam North Peigan, the president of the Sixties Scoop Indigenous Society of Alberta, said Monday that as someone who represents those "directly affected by the holocaust of the residential schools," he is troubled by how the premier has dealt with recent criticism of Bunner's writing.

"Paul Bunner's attitude is what reinforces the attitude of privilege towards the first peoples of this land we now call Canada to the point of denying the atrocities of this assimilation," he said, noting that the Blackfoot Confederacy also recently called for Bunner to be removed.

READ MORE: Blackfoot Confederacy calls for Alberta premier to fire speechwriter over residential school comments

Noskey suggested he wanted Kenney's UCP government to support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to "acknowledge that we are people, human beings, with rights --not only human rights, but inherent and treaty rights."

"The exploitation of our land and resources is constant," he said.

READ MORE: UCP introduces bill, $1 billion would support First Nations economic investments

When asked about past comments the Kenney government has made about being partners in prosperity with Indigenous people, Noskey said he does not believe such a partnership is in place.

"I know that the billion-dollar Indigenous fund was promised... but I think that's to the big corporations that are out there," he said

If Canada uses Huawei, it'll be kicked out of Five Eyes: Former Canadian diplomat

Investors flee Canadian market on worst day in 80 years

Canadian stocks plunged, posting their biggest drop in eight decades as concerns mounted that the coronavirus pandemic will impact economic growth.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index fell 12 per cent Thursday, the biggest one day drop since May 1940, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Trading was halted earlier in the day amid dramatic selling at the opening. The nation’s benchmark slumped to its lowest since February 2016 at the close.

“The most important thing right now is to focus on liquidity, focus on safe yields and non-cyclical parts of market,” including Canadian banks, David Rosenberg, founder of Rosenberg Research and Associates Inc., said in a phone interview. He’s “nibbling back into the market” and advising clients to look for stocks where dividends are safe.

Rosenberg, the former Merrill Lynch chief economist, who has long been forecasting a recession, thinks one has already begun in Canada and the U.S. “This is an absolutely horrible situation, at every level,” he said.

A growing chorus of economists believe Canada is on the brink of recession as the economy takes a double hit from the coronavirus and tanking oil prices, ramping up pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to boost its fiscal stimulus package.

Don’t bank on a quick bounce, at least according to Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. “The caveat here is that we do not believe there is a V-shape recovery given the magnitude of the recent technical damage in market internals,” the bank’s technical analyst Sid Mokhtari said in a note to clients.

Crude oil slumped further after President Donald Trump said the U.S. would restrict travel from Europe for the next 30 days in an attempt to contain the coronavirus, pummeling fuel demand.

Trudeau is in self-isolation and working from home while his wife awaits the results of a Covid-19 test. Sophie Gregoire Trudeau had been exhibiting flu-like symptoms after recently returning from a speaking engagement in London, the prime minister’s office said in a statement. While her symptoms have subsided, she’s self-isolating at home as she awaits the test results.

The prime minister isn’t exhibiting any symptoms.

'We are Vanessa Guillén': killing puts sexual violence in US military in focus
US military

The 20-year-old soldier said she was being sexually harassed by superiors before her dismembered body was found in Texas
Shilpa Jindia Tue 14 Jul 2020

Offerings sit in front of a mural of the slain army specialist Vanessa Guillén painted on a wall in the south side of Fort Worth, Texas. Photograph: LM Otero/AP
The disappearance and killing of soldier Vanessa Guillén has gripped Texas, and reignited widespread outrage over sexual violence in the US military and the failures of recent reforms to address it.

Guillén, 20, disappeared from the Fort Hood military base in Killeen on 22 April. After over two months in which hundreds of people searched for her across large parts of central Texas, remains were found in late June, and were later identified as Guillén’s.

Military sexual assaults jump by 37%, anonymous survey shows
Read more  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/02/unreported-military-sexual-assaults-jump-by-37-anonymous-survey-shows

As her family publicly pressed for answers, the army announced that a suspect, soldier Aaron David Robinson, died on 1 July by suicide as law enforcement pursued him. Robinson’s girlfriend Cecily Aguilar, a civilian, was arrested and later charged with conspiracy to tamper with evidence.

The Department of Justice released a criminal complaint alleging that Robinson had murdered Guillén at the base, then dismembered and buried her body near the Leon River, with Aguilar’s help. Guillén’s family say they learned what allegedly happened to Vanessa as the public did.

Aguilar appeared in court earlier this month but did not make any statement other than to acknowledge the charges against her. She did not enter a plea.

Many questions remain unanswered about the events leading up to Guillén’s death. She told family and friends that she was being sexual harassed by two different soldiers who outranked her, including Robinson, but never formally reported the allegations, fearing retaliation.

A lawyer for the Guillén family told the Houston Chronicle that they provided Robinson’s name to authorities. “We believe that Vanessa told him that she was reporting him, and that’s why he bludgeoned her,” said the Guillén family attorney, Natalie Khawam. She has said that if Guillén had felt able to come forward before, she might still be alive today.

About one in three service members report sexual assault, according to the defense department. Last year, 6,236 reports of sexual assault were filed with the department’s sexual assault prevention and response office, which was established in 2005. The vast majority were women aged 17 to 24, like Guillén.

Guillén’s disappearance prompted protesters to march in the streets across major cities in Texas over Independence Day weekend, before her remains were found. The hashtag #IAmVanessaGuillen spread across social media as service members shared stories of sexual violence and harassment in a #MeToo reckoning for the military, as the country also grapples with the wider indictments of systemic racial discrimination and injustice following the killing of George Floyd.

Protesters gather at a march and vigil for Vanessa Guillen on 12 July in Austin, Texas. Photograph: Sergio Flores/Getty Images

Guillén’s family pushed relentlessly for answers in their search for Vanessa.The family have now renewed their calls to shut down Fort Hood, as well as for a congressional investigation into the base and new legislation to create an independent agency for soldiers to report sexual harassment and violence.

“They lied to us since day one,” Mayra Guillén, Vanessa’s sister, said in an anguished press conference last week.

More 4,000 women and non-binary veterans and active duty members have signed a petition directed at the leaders of Department of Defense and congressional leadership supporting the family’s calls.

“We are Vanessa Guillén, that’s our story too, it could have easily been any one of us,” said Tristeza Ordex, a retired marine corps staff sergeant who helped start the letter along with Pam Campos-Palma, a former intelligence analyst and community organizer.

“Her story, what happened to her, really resonates for me because, she’s a Mexican American woman that lost her life, and that could have easily been me with the things that I went through, the sexual harassment, the attempts of assault, and dealing with the chain of command where you try to report things.”

The letter also demands the immediate relief and replacement of Guillén’s chain of command, up to and including the commanding general of Fort Hood, and a boycott on enlistment until systemic rape culture is addressed.

The US army is assembling a civilian review panel of consultants to review the “command climate and culture” at Fort Hood, the army secretary, Ryan McCarthy, announced last week.

“The purpose of this independent review is to determine whether the command climate and culture at Fort Hood and the surrounding military community reflects the army’s values including respect, inclusiveness and workplaces free from sexual harassment, and the commitment to diversity,” a statement said. Several other investigations into conduct at Food Hood are also under way, including one examining the allegations that Guillén was sexually harassed, and another on the support given to those who report sexual harassment and sexual assault.

The Fort Hood army base near Killeen, Texas. There have been several unsolved deaths or disappearances at the base. Photograph: Jack Plunkett/AP

One of the largest military bases in the world, Fort Hood has been criticized for failing to protect soldiers in the past. In 2015, a sergeant with the base’s sexual assault reporting unit – which Guillén would have reported to had she lodged a complaint – pleaded guilty to running a prostitution ring with vulnerable young soldiers.

“It’s like a fox in the hen house,” Khawam told the Guardian. “This is an epidemic in our military system, in our culture. It’s cultivated in that place.”

In the course of the search for Guillén, investigators also found the remains of another missing Fort Hood soldier, Private Gregory Morales, who disappeared last August, one of several unsolved deaths and disappearances at the base.

Almost 90 lawmakers have signed a letter spearheaded by the Texas representative Sylvia Garcia calling for the defense department’s inspector general to investigate Guillén’s disappearance at Fort Hood.

But survivors and advocates already know the limits of congressional advocacy. Awareness and outrage over sexual violence in the military grew after the 2012 documentary Invisible War. However, efforts to pass legislation reforming military justice faltered over a debate about commanders’ roles in prosecuting sexual assault.

In 2013, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand introduced the Military Justice Improvement Act, which would give independent military prosecutors outside the chain of command control over sexual assault cases. Soldiers cannot sue the military for harm, and have little recourse aside from reporting up the chain of command.
Rep. Sylvia Garcia(@RepSylviaGarcia)

Vanessa Guillen and her family were failed.

I thank all my colleagues in Congress who have reached out about this case and who are ready to help.

Together, we must ensure the Guillen family gets #JusticeForVanessa and that this never happens again.#IAmVanessaGuillen pic.twitter.com/7tPsFCKtdRJuly 2, 2020

While the bill received bipartisan support, Gillibrand encountered resistance from within her own party. The then senator Claire McCaskill offered her own legislation proposing many of the same reforms, but kept power within the chain of command, deferring to tradition. McCaskill, a former sex crimes prosecutor, found herself labeled as the roadblock to the most significant piece of congressional legislation challenging rape culture in the military.

Though Congress criminalized retaliation, among a number of reforms, it remains a significant barrier to reporting in the fraternal world of the military. Service members who report sexual harassment or assault risk ostracism and their career. The defense department was able to substantiate only one of the 129 retaliation cases it investigated in 2018, and 64% of service members surveyed said they experienced retaliation for reporting assault. Sixty-six per cent of retaliation reports allege that retaliators were in the soldier’s chain of command. “When the chain of command tries to be the one that’s involved, it’s like the police policing itself,” said Ordex.

“If there’s not actual accountability for those actions, then the fact that things have changed a little bit on the books doesn’t change the culture at all,” said attorney Sara Darahshouri, who wrote two reports on retaliation for sexual assault crimes in the military while senior counsel at Human Rights Watch. “As a symbolic gesture, it made sense. But the problem is you could always have punished for retaliation.”

The Guillén family plans to lead a peaceful protest in Washington DC, on 30 July, when they will present their proposed bill to lawmakers. “That’s the stage that the family needs,” Ordex said.

“She wanted to be a part of something that was bigger than herself. And what ended up happening is that this amazing and beautiful family gave this beautiful girl to this country, and they chewed her up and spit her out like she was garbage.”

UK

 Priti Patel is wrong, modern slavery in Leicester is built on her government's failures Emily Kenway

‘Cultural sensitivities’ aren’t the issue: we need proper labour inspection, migrant workers’ safety and strong unionisation

Tue 14 Jul 2020
 

‘Instead of conjecture, Priti Patel would do better to look at how her own department’s policies are making the situation so much worse.’ Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

The Covid-19 pandemic has ensured that the conditions in garment sweatshops in Leicester are no longer an open secret shared by those in the know, but a nationally recognised shame. The government should be seizing this opportunity and taking action to rid these factories and many other workplaces around the country of exploitation.

Instead, the weekend brought us reports of Priti Patel comparing the situation in Leicester to the Rotherham grooming scandal, suggesting that “cultural sensitivities” were the reason why the endemic abuse had not been tackled. This sounds like an attempt to distract us from the policy failures that have led us here, to a country in which more than 10,000 potential victims of modern slavery were identified in 2019, and everyday products have exploitation in their supply chains.

Employers push abusive working conditions on to workers for one very simple reason: to make more money. In this way, it’s an opportunistic act. So, very simply, we need to remove the opportunity. How do we do that? There are three clear ways: properly funded labour inspection, ensuring reporting abuse is safe for migrant workers, and strong unionisation. None of them involve cultural sensitivities, and government has been asked for them repeatedly over the years.

We can’t expect to have decent workplaces without proper enforcement of our labour laws

We can’t expect to have decent workplaces without proper enforcement of our labour laws. For too long, labour inspection has been portrayed as busybody interference or “red tape”. This narrative allows government to get away with shameful underfunding of our inspectorates. The stats say it all: the likelihood of a minimum wage inspection by HMRC for an average employer is once every 500 years. The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, our foremost agency tasked with tackling precisely the kinds of conditions reported in Leicester, has just over 100 staff to cover the entire labour market of England and Wales. Labour inspectors weren’t even named as “essential workers” on government lists when the pandemic took hold. They’re treated as the poor relation of policing, and yet without them to hold the line, labour abuses escalate into full-blown modern slavery. For government to point the finger at these frontline services for the situation in Leicester is, at best, ignorance of the facts, and, at worst, offensive to these underfunded agencies.

Funding labour inspectorates properly alone won’t solve problems like those in Leicester. Instead of conjecture, Patel would do better to look at how her own department’s policies are making the situation so much worse. The hostile environment – and specifically, the illegal working offence – makes it impossible for migrant workers with irregular status to feel safe to report abuse. They’re forced to choose between staying in exploitative situations or risking detention and deportation if they report harm. Even being a victim of modern slavery won’t protect them; hundreds of victims have been locked up in immigration jails in the UK on a regular basis. And exploitative bosses know this, directly using migrant workers’ fear to force them to accept abusive conditions. This is so well recognised that the government’s own form for referring victims of modern slavery to support services includes “threat of being handed over to authorities” as an indicator. There’s a very straightforward way to solve this: repeal the illegal working offence and introduce “secure reporting”, which ensures any reports of workplace abuse are kept separate from immigration enforcement.

Finally, the most effective defenders of workplace rights are workers themselves. We’ve become inured to the decline of unions, and yet Covid-19 demonstrates their importance: without them ensuring that health and safety rules – like social distancing and PPE – are observed, this job is left to business. Brands do have the power to ensure unionisation in their supply chains, just like they have the power to impose such low prices for orders that necessitate poverty wages, but they don’t use it. Boohoo was outed during a 2019 parliamentary inquiry for refusing “even the most basic level of engagement” with the union Usdaw, and for being generally hostile to workers organising for their rights. If the government really wants to avoid more lockdowns and more exploitation, it should mandate unionisation in high-risk sectors.

Properly funded labour inspection, ensuring reporting abuse is safe for migrant workers, and strong unionisation are the foundations of a decent and healthy labour market. Without them in place, we’ll continue to have the kind of appalling situation exposed in Leicester. The health of our workplaces and communities requires us not to be distracted by red herring explanations but to keep calling for a post-Covid-19 future that puts these foundations firmly in place at last.

• Emily Kenway is senior adviser at Focus on Labour Exploitation and author of The Truth about Modern Slavery, published in January 2021

Huge Atlas statue to guard Sicily's Temple of Zeus once more

Eight-metre statue built in 5th century BC had been buried among ancient ruins


Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo @lorenzo_tondo

Tue 14 Jul 2020
 

The Atlas statue will soon be raised upright to stand in front of the temple. Photograph: Yuriy Brykaylo/Alamy

A colossal statue of Atlas, buried for centuries among ancient ruins, will soon take its rightful place among the ancient Greek temples of Agrigento on Sicily.

The city’s archaeological park announced that the artwork, one of the most celebrated sculptures on the island, will be raised upright in front of the Temple of Zeus.

In Greek mythology, Atlas was a Titan or god who was forced to bear the sky on his shoulders after being defeated by Zeus, one of the next generation of gods called Olympians.

The statue, eight metres high and built in the 5th century BC, was one of nearly 40 that adorned the ancient building, considered the largest Doric temple ever built, even if it was never completed and now lies in ruins.

“The reinstalment of the statue of Atlas is the culmination of a more comprehensive restoration [of the temple],” says Roberto Sciarratta, director of the archaeological park.

“In the last decade, we’ve recovered and catalogued numerous artefacts that were once a part of the original structure … The goal is to recompose piece-by-piece the trabeation [beams] of the Temple of Zeus to restore a portion of its original splendour.”
A view of Agrigento’s Valley of the Temples. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Archaeologists and architects will soon start work to raise the statue in Sicily’s Valley of the Temples on the occasion of the founding of the ancient city of Akragas (now Agrigento) 2,600 years ago.

It was one of the leading population centres in the region during the golden age of Ancient Greece and holds seven well-preserved Greek temples.

Built on a high ridge over a span of 100 years, they remain among the most magnificent examples of Greek architecture. In the 5th century, more than 100,000 people lived there and, according to the philosopher Empedocles, they would “party as if they’ll die tomorrow, and build as if they will live for ever”.

The city was destroyed in 406 BC by the Carthaginians, and its prosperity did not return until the rise of Timoleon in the late third century BC. During the Punic wars, the Carthaginians defended the settlement against the Romans, who seized control of the city in 210 BC.


During the Roman era, the city – renamed Agrigentum (subsequently known as Girgenti) – underwent a period of monumental urban redevelopment with new public buildings, including at least two temples.

Over the centuries, brickwork from the old monuments of the ancient city was taken for use in the construction of the buildings around Girgenti and the ancient harbour of Porto Empedocle.

Historians also maintained that the Temple of Zeus was never finished because it was still lacking a roof when Akragas was conquered by the Carthaginians.


Outside the temple, huge statues of Atlas were frozen in the act of supporting the temple.

“The idea is to reposition one of these Atlases in front of the temple,” says Sciarratta, “so that it may serve as a guardian of the structure dedicated to the father of the gods.”

 UK faces largest GDP decline in 300 years

THE UK economy might not recover from the coronavirus crisis until 2024, the fiscal watchdog has warned.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said the ‘UK is on track to record the largest decline in annual gross domestic product (GDP) for 300 years’, warning that the economy could shrink by as much as 14.3 per cent in 2020.

In its latest set of financial forecasts, it said a worst-case scenario would also not see GDP recover to pre-crisis levels until the third quarter of 2024.

Government measures to address the impact of the virus will also result in an ‘unprecedented peacetime rise in borrowing’ this year, to between 13 per cent and 21 per cent of GDP, with the OBR currently predicting borrowing of £322billion.

UK GDP is set to fall by 10.6 per cent in even its most optimistic projection, the OBR said.

However, this scenario also projects that GDP could recover to its pre-virus peak by the first quarter of next year.

In its middling scenario, the OBR suggests GDP could fall by 12.4 per cent, before returning to its pre-virus level by the end of 2022, with ‘elevated’ levels of unemployment and business failures

Earlier on Tuesday, the ONS said that UK GDP grew by 1.8 per cent in May following the easing of the lockdown but remained a quarter below its pre-pandemic levels.

James Smith, research director at the Resolution Foundation, said: ‘The OBR’s forecasts reiterate the scale of the hit to our economy and public finances from the pandemic.’

Weak recovery could make unemployment worse than 1980s levels, warns OBR

Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts UK’s biggest peacetime deficit in 300 years and permanent ‘economic scars’


Richard Partington Economics correspondent
Tue 14 Jul 2020

A pedestrian passes a sale sign outside a store in central London, 10 July 2020. Britain’s high street is continuing to feel the impact of the lockdown caused by the coronavirus, with job losses almost a daily occurrence. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Hopes for a rapid economic rebound from Covid-19 have been dealt a severe blow after official figures revealed a lacklustre return to growth in May with the government put on notice about persistently higher levels of unemployment.

Sounding the alarm over the growth outlook as job losses across the country rapidly mount, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) – the Treasury’s independent forecaster – warned unemployment could rise beyond the levels seen in the 1980s while the country struggles to regain its pre-virus footing.

Faced with a weak recovery and the rapid rollout of government spending to cushion the blow, it said public borrowing was on track to reach £322bn this year, in what would be the UK’s biggest peacetime deficit in 300 years.

The intervention from the OBR comes after official figures showed the UK economy returned to growth in May more slowly than expected, with gross domestic product (GDP) rising by 1.8%.


After the biggest collapse in activity since records began in April, when the economy shrank by a fifth, experts had expected some recovery in May as the government eased restrictions on movement, enabling some construction sites and factories to reopen. However, the bounce back was weaker than growth of 5.5% forecast by City economists.

Issuing a downbeat assessment of the country’s prospects after the disappointing official growth figures, the OBR warned the chance of lasting economic “scarring” was rapidly mounting.

Less than a week after the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, attempted to light the blue touch paper on a rapid economic rebound with £30bn of tax cuts and fresh spending measures, the forecaster said GDP was on-track to fall by 12.4% this year. That would compare with growth of 1.5% in 2019.

Publishing three scenarios in its annual fiscal risks report, it said GDP in the best case would still shrink by 10% before a recovery next year. In the worst-case scenario, GDP would fall by about 14%, marking the deepest recession in three centuries.

In a reflection of the lasting damage from persistently higher levels of unemployment, scrapped business investments and weaker consumer spending, the main scenario included GDP remaining 3% smaller after five years than would have been the case without Covid-19.

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Concerns are mounting over the pace of Britain’s economic recovery as the government prepares to wind down its furlough scheme from next month. Labour, business leaders and trade unions have warned that Britain’s road to recovery could be longer and more challenging than hoped, requiring more government support to save jobs than promised by Sunak last week.

Although the OBR said it was not given enough time by the Treasury to include Sunak’s spending measures in its latest analysis, it said it anticipated a sharp rise in job losses as the government winds down its furlough wage subsidy scheme.

At least 10% and as much as a 20% of the 9.4m jobs furloughed on the scheme will be made redundant, it said, as state subsidies are reduced from the start of August and removed entirely by the end of October.

Under every scenario, it said unemployment would more than double from pre-Covid levels, with the jobless rate in Britain hitting a peak of 12% before Christmas under its main forecast. At levels surpassing the hit to jobs caused by the 2008 financial crisis, the unemployment rate last peaked close to 12% in 1984. The current jobless rate is 3.9%.

Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, said the analysis showed the government needed to listen to calls from Labour, business groups and trade unions for more support to be given to the hardest-hit firms through the furlough scheme.

“Instead of withdrawing support across the piece, he must target it to sectors where it’s needed most. If he doesn’t act, even more people run the risk of being thrown into the misery of unemployment and our economy will continue to suffer,” she said.

Although there are hopes that a stronger recovery could take hold as the government rolls back lockdown restrictions, initial attempts to get more people back to work in May resulted in a weaker bounce back than hoped for.

Manufacturing and construction grew strongly as building sites and factories began to reopen, although service sector firms – including those in retail, hospitality and leisure – continued to struggle due to lockdown restrictions and reduced demand.

Suren Thiru, head of economics at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “The pickup in output in May is more likely to reflect the partial release of pent-up demand as restrictions began to loosen, rather than evidence of a genuine recovery.Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk

“While UK economic output may grow further in the short term as restrictions ease, this may dissipate as the economic scarring caused by the pandemic starts to bite, particularly as government support winds down.”

Faced with the sharp increase in borrowing to pay for its Covid-19 response and the smaller size of the UK economy in future, the OBR said the government would need to find an additional £64bn a year from tax rises or a return to austerity to put the public finances back on a sustainable trajectory.


Sunak said the growth figures from the Office for National Statistics underlined the scale of the challenge the government faced.

“I know people are worried about the security of their jobs and incomes. That’s why I set out our plan for jobs last week, following the PM’s new deal for Britain, to protect, support and create jobs as we safely reopen our economy,” he said.

Italy Returns Stolen Banksy Piece in Memory of Bataclan Shooting to France

© AP Photo / Domenico Stinellis

14.07.2020
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A piece of art attributed to famous street artist Banksy in commemoration of the 2015 Paris terror attacks has been returned to France after it was stolen and discovered in Italy, media reported on Tuesday.

The so-called Gate of Banksy was painted in 2018 on an emergency exit door of the Bataclan theater, where 90 people were killed by terrorists during a concert three years prior. It was stolen in 2019, before being discovered by Italian law enforcement officers in the Abruzzo region.

"This work has high artistic value, it witnessed the massacre, and many people were saved through this emergency exit door. In addition, this shows the brilliant cooperation between France and Italy," French Ambassador in Rome Christian Masset said, as quoted by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

A transfer ceremony took place at the French embassy in Rome, as France celebrates Bastille Day.

The painting remains in good condition despite the theft. According to a police reconstruction, the thieves used grinders to cut away the emergency exit door before escaping with the artwork.

On 13 November 2015, terrorists launched a series of coordinated attacks in the French capital, including in Bataclan, that killed a total of 130 civilians. Daesh terrorist group (banned in Russia) claimed responsibility for the attack.

MORE HINDUTVA: POLITICAL HINDU NATIONALISM
Campaign brewing to get Hindu god Brahma off popular beer

Brahma beer is displayed at a bar that's open for deliveries only amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, July 14, 2020. An interfaith coalition is pressuring the world’s largest brewer to remove the name of the Hindu god, saying the name is offensive to Hindus, who worship Lord Brahma, the religion's god of creation. An Anheuser-Busch InBev brewery spokesman says the beer actually was named to honor Joseph Bramah, an Englishman who invented the draft pump handle, and the spelling was changed to adapt the name to the Portuguese language. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

An interfaith coalition is pressing the world’s largest brewer to remove the name of a Hindu god from a popular beer that dates to the late 1800s — a dispute the beermaker insists is a case of mistaken identity.

The group, which includes representatives of the Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and Jain religions, is calling on Belgium-based brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV to rename its Brahma line, a favorite in Brazil.

Brahma was first produced in 1888 by Companhia Cervejaria Brahma, a Brazilian brewery now owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, whose massive lineup of 500 brands includes Budweiser, Bud Light, Corona and Stella Artois. Beers sold under the Brahma name include a lager, a double malt, a wheat beer and a chocolate stout.

“It is the right time to fix an old wrong — the trivializing of the faith of our Hindu brothers and sisters for about 132 years,” coalition spokesperson Rajan Zed told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Lord Brahma, the god of creation in Hinduism, is a highly revered figure who should be worshiped in temples or home shrines, “not misused as a ‘toasting tool,’” Zed said.

He said the coalition also objects to what it calls “raunchy” marketing of the brand by using the image of a scantily clad woman to promote the beers.

“Anheuser-Busch InBev should not be in the business of religious appropriation, sacrilege and ridiculing entire communities,” the coalition said in a statement, calling on the company to “prove that it cares about communities by renaming its Brahma beer.”

But Lucas Rossi, head of communications for Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Latin America subsidiary, said Tuesday the beers were named in tribute to Joseph Bramah — an Englishman who invented the draft pump valve — and not for the Hindu deity. The spelling was changed, he said, to make the name work better in the Portuguese language.

“We deeply respect all religions, faiths and their histories,” Rossi said in a telephone interview. Hindus are a tiny minority in Brazil, where the Brahma brand is “very important to the culture of the country,” he added.

The name offends regardless of its origins, Zed said.

“The stated history behind the name does not reduce the pain of the Hindu devotees when they see their creator god on alcohol cans,” he said.

Zed, who is based in Nevada and is the president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, has campaigned against what he considers the misuse of Eastern religious imagery for commercial purposes for several years. In 2019, he extracted an apology from a Virginia brewery that brewed a beer named for another Hindu deity, saying that associating Lord Hanuman with alcohol was disrespectful.

Last month, the interfaith coalition launched a separate campaign aimed at pressuring Foundation Room and House of Blues nightclubs in Boston and other cities to stop using sacred Buddhist and Hindu imagery as decor. The upscale watering holes are managed by Beverly Hills, California-based Live Nation Entertainment, which apologized and said it was removing some statues from the clubs.

Brahma chicken - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Brahma_chicken
The Brahma is an American breed of chicken. It was developed in the United States from birds imported from the Chinese port of Shanghai, :78 and was the ...

Safaripedia | Brahma Bull - Safari Ltd.
https://www.safariltd.com › safaripedia › brahma-bull
The odd-looking Brahma bull has been mainly used in the United States to improve existing beef breeds. Many beef breeders in hot climates will buy a Brahma .. .

33 Best Brahma Bulls images in 2020 | Brahma bull, Bull cow ...
https://www.pinterest.com › nanjohnsto › brahma-bulls
The Brahman is a breed of hump-shouldered cattle with drooping necks and large, floppy ears. In the United States, Brahmans are sometimes called Brahman

Brahma Ropers & Buckaroos | Canada West Boots

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Ladies' BRAHMA® Ropers, Buckaroos & Spongys®. with treated leather or Vibram soles. Vibram logo.png. BISON.gif. Granite Everest. 12" quarters. Treated ...

Brama (fish) - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Brama_(fish)
Eight recognized species are in this genus: Brama australis Valenciennes, 1838 (southern Ray's bream) Brama brama (Bonnaterre, 1788) (Atlantic pomfret) Brama caribbea Mead, 1972 (Caribbean pomfret)

Brahma Kamal - rare, legendary & mythological plant of India ...
https://wiki.nurserylive.com › brahma-kamal-rare-legendary-mythological-...
The flower starts blooming after sunset from 7 p m onwards and takes about two hours to full bloom,about 8 inches in diameter and remain open through out night.

Trump bristles at question about police killing Blacks


President Donald Trump listens during roundtable with people positively impacted by law enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump bristled Tuesday at a reporter’s question about police killing African Americans and defended the right to display the Confederate flag as he continued to play into racial divisions in an interview.

In the interview, Trump seemed taken aback when asked why African Americans are still dying at the hands of police.

“And so are white people. So are white people. What a terrible question to ask. So are white people,” Trump told CBS’s Catherine Herridge. “More white people, by the way. More white people.”

There is no national database tracking police-involved shootings. But studies have shown that Black Americans are much more likely to be killed by police, even though more whites — who represent a larger portion of the population — are killed. One study that examined the use of lethal force by law enforcement from 2009 to 2012, for instance, found that, while victims were a majority white (52%), they were disproportionately Black (32%) with a fatality rate 2.8 times higher among Blacks than whites.

In the interview, Trump also defended the use of the Confederate flag, despite saying in 2015 that he believed the flag belongs in a museum.
“All I say is freedom of speech. It’s very simple. My attitude is freedom of speech,” Trump responded. “Very simple. Like it, don’t like it, it’s freedom of speech.”
Asked whether he understood the flag is a painful symbol to many because it is a reminder of slavery, Trump responded that some “people love it,” adding: “And I know people that like the Confederate flag and they’re not thinking about slavery.”