Italy shocked at discovery of fetus graves bearing women’s name

MIKE PENCE MADE THIS LEGAL IN INDIANA

 October 15, 2020 By Agence France-Presse

The discovery of the named graves last month by a woman who had undergone an abortion provoked outrage from women's rights groups and the women involved - AFP

Small crosses made of wood and metal fill Lot 108 of Flaminio Cemetery in Rome, some painted white, some askew or fallen to the ground, all carrying female names.

They are not the names of the fetuses buried in the graves, but rather the names of the women who chose to have lawful abortions.

The discovery of the named graves last month by a woman who had undergone an abortion provoked outrage from women’s rights groups and the women involved, who denounced the public exposure of personal medical choices.

“To think that someone appropriated her body, that a rite was performed, that she was buried with a cross and my name on it, was like reopening a wound,” Francesca, one of the many women affected, told AFP.

“I feel betrayed by the institutions.”

The group Differenza Donna (Woman Difference) said it had been contacted by about 100 women who underwent abortions at hospitals in the city.

The activists are scheduled to meet the health minister next week and have petitioned the public prosecutor’s office to open an investigation.

Italy’s privacy watchdog has also opened a probe into the practice, which appears for now to be a bureaucratic procedure gone awry.

– ‘Ugly act’ –

The scandal first came to light last month after a woman who had an abortion — at a hospital different from the one used by Francesca — discovered her name on a cross at the cemetery and posted on Facebook, a message that soon went viral.

Elisa Ercoli, president of Differenza Donna, described the discovery as the latest slap in the face for women in the majority Catholic country, calling it an “ugly, authoritarian act”.

Abortion within the first 90 days of pregnancy has been legal in Italy since 1978, but the law allows for conscientious objectors among medical professionals.

Seven out of 10 gynecologists in the country refuse to carry out the procedure, complicating access to abortions for women in some areas.

Ercoli told AFP the group had found crosses bearing women’s names from 2017 to 2020 at the cemetery and learnt that the practice has been going on since at least 2005.

A similar practice was subsequently discovered at a cemetery in the northern city of Brescia.

A national law from 1990 calls for fetuses less than 20 weeks old to be incinerated by the hospitals.

But hospitals can entrust fetuses aborted after 20 weeks to cemetery services for burial even without the consent of family members.

While hospital permits required for transport and burial of the fetuses can include women’s personal data, those records are supposed to be kept confidential.

Rome’s municipal waste disposal and street cleaning agency AMA, which also manages the capital’s cemeteries, said after the first woman posted on Facebook that the fetus was buried “after specific input from the hospital where the intervention took place”.

AMA had “no role in such decisions”, it said.

AMA did not respond to AFP’s requests for more detail.

– ‘Sign of punishment’ –

A regional councillor has already proposed clearer procedures from hospital to cemetery, blaming legal ambiguity for allowing “discretionary choices”.

Francesca, who did not want to provide her last name, said she chose to undergo an abortion last September in the sixth month of pregnancy after learning her child had a serious heart defect.

She said she remembered signing papers given to her at the hospital as her contractions became stronger just before her delivery, but said she did not read them.

After the abortion, Francesca said she asked about what would happen to the fetus three times, without receiving any answers, adding that it was not only a shock to discover the grave but also to see the cross, which she said did not correspond to her beliefs.

In Italy, children are automatically given their father’s last name upon birth.

“But if a woman has an abortion, her name and surname are included,” Francesca noted.

“Finding my name on the cross was a sign of punishment for me.”

© 2020 AFP

Trump is the ‘savior from the destruction’: How Evangelicals have long talked of conspiracies against God’s ‘chosen’

October 15, 2020 By The Conversation

President Donald Trump sees many conspiracies around him.

He has described investigations into both Russia’s interference in the U.S. election and alleged violations of campaign finance laws, as well as the entirety of his impeachment, as “witch hunts” and a “hoax.”

He is not the only one seeing sinister forces at play. Some of his supporters do the same. A number of books on conspiracy theories chronicle alleged failed “deep state” attempts to take down Trump.

Even Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis and hospital stay spawned a range of conspiracy theories, with some conservative sources suggesting Republicans were infected deliberately.

In my recent book, “Rhetoric, Race, and Religion on the Christian Right,” I examined conspiratorial themes and rhetoric of some of the leaders of the Christian right during the Obama administration.

I argue that the rhetoric of conspiracy, now used by Trump, was foundational for many prominent figures of the Christian right.

The Christian right and conspiracy

In the late 1970s and 1980s, evangelical leaders such as Jerry Falwell Sr., Billy Graham and others resisted social and cultural changes such as racial integration of schools. For some, social and cultural changes were signs of a fallen country.

As religious historian Randall Balmer explains, some conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists began to coalesce around resistance to desegregation in the mid-1970s. Conspiracy theories circulated in some conservative political spheres concerning civil rights protests.

These conspiracy theorists suggested that the student protesters in the civil rights movement were outside agitators. Others suggested that Martin Luther King Jr. and student protesters and organizers were in league with international Communist organizations.

Then in the late 1970s, Republican political strategist Paul Weyrich brought disparate religious factions and conservative politicians together and named them the Moral Majority.

Weyrich and his companions saw Christianity as under attack and suggested that America had fallen away from its values. In 1980 Falwell Sr. argued, “What’s happened to America is that the wicked are bearing rule. We have to lead the nation back to the moral stance that made America great.”

Falwell saw the nation as fallen and secular forces as the enemy of Christianity. Theological and political differences, rather than differences of approach or argument, were figured as a battle for America’s soul. Popular religious figures like Francis Schaeffer, a Presbyterian minister, framed the survival of Western culture as a battle between secular humanism and Christianity.

In explaining his father’s place as a foundational figure on the Christian right, Francis Schaeffer Jr. argued, “For the first time in American history, what you’ve got coming out of the ‘70s and evangelical subculture is a world that looks at its own country as the enemy to be feared.”

This new brand of evangelicalism grew quickly. According to sociologist Sara Diamond, 20 to 40 million Americans identified as evangelical by 1989. Exact numbers of evangelicals are hard to pinpoint, because the term encompasses a wide range of denominations.

Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll explained it this way: “the term has been associated with a particular group of Christians who hold conservative and generally Republican ideological and political beliefs.” According to a Gallup poll aggregating data from 1991 to 2018 about 40% of Americans identified as evangelicals or born-again Christians. The number has remained steady for the past three decades.

To clarify, not all evangelicals are conservative. But a defining feature of the Christian Right is political involvement. While younger evangelicals are less politically committed, older evangelicals associated with the Christian right remain deeply politically committed.

A Pew Research Poll shows that 79% of white Protestant evangelicals voted Republican in the 2012 presidential. Exit polls show about 80% of white evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016.

Christian values and conspiracy

Some Christian right leaders have named groups they held responsible for the fallen nature of America. Tim LaHaye, a political organizer and co-author of a series of best-selling Christian books, “Left Behind,” claimed that a group called the “Illuminati” coordinated a global conspiracy to undermine Christian values.

The historical Illuminati were members of a secret society founded in Bavaria, modern-day Germany, in 1776 to oppose the abuse of power by the state. Today, a mythological version of the Illuminati is a favorite among conspiracy theorists.

LaHaye, for example, claimed the Illuminati faltered in their attempts to establish a New World Order because the Christian right mobilized the vote for Ronald Reagan. One-time presidential candidate and televangelist Pat Robertson similarly has attributed other conspiracy theories to the Illuminati.

More than culture wars

Since the late 1970s, the rhetoric of some of the Christian right leaders has been used to wage culture war battles against racial integration, marriage and gender identity protections and compulsory public education.

In 1986, prominent evangelical leader and political activist Beverly LaHaye, wife of Tim LaHaye, lamented feminism and those advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment, saying, “Well, nobody really likes their unisex, lesbian, radical philosophy either.”

LaHaye describes equal rights and pay equality as radical and suggests feminism seeks to undo biological sex and is intrinsically linked to same-sex relationships. Rather than a civil rights issue concerning individual freedoms, LaHaye framed the women’s movement as an attack on conservative communities and their values.

Phyllis Schlafly, founder of STOP ERA, an organization formed to stop the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, rose to national prominence in 1964 with her book “A Choice Not an Echo.” She claimed: “From 1936 to 1960 the Republican presidential nominee was selected by a secret group of kingmakers who are the most powerful opinion makers in the world.” Schlafly claimed powerful elites took the power of the conservative party from the people.

Fifty years later, in her 2014 book “Who Killed the American Family?” Schlafly claimed, “The American nuclear family made America great, but few are now defending it against forces determined to destroy it.” In Schlafly’s telling, the American family is monolithic. Variance in family structures signals destruction of conservative notions of the nuclear family.

Schlafly’s monthly newsletter, renamed the Eagle Forums Report after her death, forwards similar positions with regard to immigration. Authors on the site suggest ending birthright citizenship and make generalizations about Muslim immigrants being terrorists. They frame these matters as a means of protecting American culture and values.

Birther theories

Donald Trump seems to have joined himself with conspiracy theorists on the Christian right early in his political career.

Even before his campaign, Trump joined with conservative Christian figures like Joseph Farah, the founder and editor of WND, or World Net Daily. WND is a far-right website that entered the mainstream during President Obama’s presidency. The website was a hub for the birther conspiracy.

Participants at a rally in Washington in 2010 that questioned President Obama’s eligibility.AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

According to some birthers, Obama was a “secret” Muslim. A 2009 article in the Columbia Journalism Review noted that some of the right-wing media had attacked him for being “un-American.”

In the middle of the Obama presidency, WND attracted 4 million unique visitors a month. WND also ran a publishing house that featured book titles from conservative figures like Schlafly.
Trump and the Christian right

Trump’s presidency brings together two lines of argument from some of these evangelical leaders through his rhetoric. First, God punishes America when Americans are unfaithful to his commandments. Second, Christianity is under attack.

In an article the Rev. Billy Graham wrote in 2012 during the lead-up to Obama’s reelection, he recalled his wife, Ruth, telling him, “If God doesn’t punish America, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”

The reference to the Old Testament story in which God laid waste to two cities for their sinful nature reinforces the idea that American leadership is responsible for American decline just as the leaders of these ancient cities were responsible for the wickedness of their people.

The underlying and unstated premise of Graham’s argument is that Obama is responsible for a fallen America that will bring God’s punishment. The Sodom and Gommorah example is telling. For Graham and some other evangelical leaders, Obama’s leadership represented an intentional move away from Christian values toward immorality.

Trump offered himself as an antidote to that fallen America and as a savior from the destruction. One way people came to accept that narrative is, I argue, through his use of conspiracy theories.

Samuel Perry, Associate professor, Baylor University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Amy Coney Barrett’s ‘ivory-tower cluelessness’ of ‘unpleasant realities in American life’ slammed by conservative

Published on October 15, 2020 By Matthew Chapman
RAW STORY

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett during her Senate hearing. (Screenshot) CLUELESS 


On Thursday, writing for The Washington Post, conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin tore into Judge Amy Coney Barrett for refusing to engage with the real-world struggles faced by everyday Americans in her confirmation hearings.

“Her repeated efforts to avoid making statements on rudimentary moral principles (e.g., it is wrong to forcibly separate families) and basic facts (e.g., corporations have more power than an individual employee; the president cannot unilaterally change the date of the election as set in statute) made Barrett come across as disingenuous, evasive and clueless. She even refused to affirm the peaceful transition of power after an election,” wrote Rubin. “Either she has lived her life in a soulless vacuum, or she is terribly afraid of offending President Trump.”


“The most painful moments of the hearing may have come when Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) took her through basic facts about voter suppression and bias in the criminal justice system,” wrote Rubin. “Her reactions suggested that much of the gross injustices faced by Black Americans, as Booker laid them out, were news to her. In an embarrassing admission, she could not identify any books, law review articles or studies on the legacy of racial discrimination — this at a time when many books on the subject are bestsellers. Not only did she come off as unknowledgeable about a critically important topic, but she apparently also has had no interest in getting up to speed on the great fault line through American life.”

“The general impression one gets from Barrett is that she is less knowledgeable about U.S. contemporary life than any Supreme Court nominee in recent memory, with the possible exception of Robert Bork,” wrote Rubin. “She cites theories of jurisprudence with ease, but she cannot acknowledge obvious political realities and facts about economic power, discrimination and science. That is a recipe for rigid, abstract judicial reasoning. Despite her insistence to the contrary, she seems to treat jurisprudence in a vacuum, with little regard for how it will affect others with whom she has little familiarity.”


“The hearing might nominally have been about Barrett’s confirmation, but it turned into a cringeworthy display of right-wing ideologues’ ignorance, if not indifference, to unpleasant realities in American life,” concluded Rubin. “It was also a compelling advertising for achieving more racial and socioeconomic diversity in Congress and the courts.”

You can read more here.

BEHIND A PAYWALL

FAILS SOFTBALL QUESTION

‘What am I missing?’: Amy Coney Barrett unable to name five freedoms in First Amendment

October 14, 2020 By David Edwards RAW STORY

Ben Sasse and Amy Coney Barrett appear at Senate Judiciary Committee hearing (PBS/screen grab)

Judge Amy Coney Barrett on Wednesday struggled to name the five freedoms that are protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

During her confirmation hearing, a Republican senator queried the Supreme Court nominee about her views on the First Amendment.

“What are the five freedoms of the First Amendment?” Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) asked.

“Speech, religion, press, assembly,” Barrett replied, counting with her fingers. “I don’t know. What am I missing?”

“Redress or protest,” Sasse offered.

“OK,” Barrett replied.

“Why is there one amendment that has these five freedoms clustered?” Sasse continued. “Why do they hang together?”

“Um, I don’t know what you’re getting at,” Barrett said.

Watch the video below from PBS.

Latest election stunt proves Uber and Lyft are their own worst political enemies





October 15, 2020 By Steven Hill, Independent Media Institute- Commentary

Uber Perth Launch (Facebook)

Like so much about politics today, the debate around Uber and Lyft’s Proposition 22 in California has quickly become polarized. Simplistic media narratives like “Silicon Valley versus labor unions,” or Uber’s self-serving argument that its drivers prefer flexibility over security, leave voters confused and torn.

But there is a more complex historical reality lurking beneath the headlines. Yes, the future of work is changing, and the labor laws must adapt, as the CEOs of Uber and Lyft asserted recently in a joint op-ed. Yet these companies have consistently missed numerous opportunities to act as good-faith partners for their drivers, and for society in general.

I have personally witnessed these companies’ failings. After my book Raw Deal: How the Uber Economy and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers was published, I was asked to a meeting with high-level Uber representatives. Previously, I had also been part of a meeting with Lyft leaders. A central part of these discussions was my proposal calling for a “portable safety net” for their drivers, and for other types of freelance workers.

With a portable safety net, each worker would have an Individual Security Account into which any business that hires that worker would contribute an amount pro-rated to the number of hours worked for that business. Those funds then would be used by that worker to pay for her or his safety net needs, such as health care, Social Security, sick leave, and injured worker or unemployment compensation. Instead of pitting flexibility against security, a portable safety net would allow not only flexible work, but also the economic security that workers and their families need.

A number of countries already do something like this, and former President Barack Obama endorsed my idea in his 2016 State of the Union address. A statement of principles was signed by about 40 business, government, labor and NGO leaders—including the president and CEO of Lyft, John Zimmer and Logan Green—calling for a portable safety net as a foundation for the future of work in the 21st-century economy. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has also called for enacting a portable safety net plan.

It seemed like this had the makings of a win-win solution. But when legislative bills were introduced for a portable safety net in the states of Washington, New York and New Jersey, Uber and Lyft came to the bargaining table offering pocket change. Rather than contributing 20 percent of a worker’s wage that is necessary to fund an adequate safety net, Uber and Lyft offered to contribute 2.5 percent. And they wanted their contributions to be voluntary. In all three states, the legislation died because these billion-dollar companies frittered away real opportunities.

When California legislation was proposed, Uber and Lyft once again countered with a paltry portable benefits package. With no serious negotiating partner on the other side, the California legislature overwhelmingly passed Assembly Bill 5 to reclassify drivers as employees rather than independent contractors. Now it’s the law, but Uber and Lyft have refused to implement it. This has resulted in multiple lawsuits and legal judgments against these renegade companies. One study found that if their drivers had been classified as employees in the last five years, Uber and Lyft would have paid more than $400 million into California’s unemployment insurance fund. Instead, California taxpayers have footed the bill for the significant wage and benefit gaps created by these companies and their crummy gig jobs.

These bitter losses prompted Uber and Lyft to join with DoorDash and Instacart to spend more than $184 million—the highest amount for a ballot proposition in California history—to try to pass Proposition 22.

A Broken Business Model

One can’t help but wonder why these multibillion-dollar companies, who can dig deep into their piggy banks to spend on this ruinous ballot measure but not on their drivers, consistently come to the bargaining table offering pocket change. Well, there’s more to this story.

It turns out that, despite how badly they underpay and mistreat their drivers, Uber and Lyft are still in huge financial trouble. They have been losing billions of dollars every year, even as their stocks have collapsed. Profit margins are inherently low in the taxi business, and their predatory business model massively subsidizes more than half the cost of each and every ride in their bid to boost market share and undercut the competition. As a result, traditional taxi companies and livery drivers have been pushed to the desperate edge of bankruptcy, and airport shuttle companies have been driven out of business.

Public transportation has also been damaged. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, public transit ridership in most major cities had declined, as commuters opted for half-priced Uber and Lyft rides over the mass ridership experience. One of the most ambitious studies of ridesharing impacts, conducted by researchers at the University of California, Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, found that ridesharing results in a dramatic rise in the number of trips made and miles driven in an automobile, as well as a pronounced reduction in the use of mass transit. All of that contributes greatly to increases in traffic congestion and carbon emissions.

Certainly, for the small minority of people who use Uber and Lyft’s subsidized rides, most of them younger, college-educated, better-off Americans (their use is “double the rate of less-educated, lower-income” people), this transportation option has been helpful. But for the vast majority who do not use these companies’ services, and who ride on the bus or drive personal vehicles, stuck in Uber-congested traffic, ride-hailing’s legacy has been decidedly negative. In short, ride-hailing has been bad for most ride-hailing drivers, and bad for congestion and traffic flow, and bad for public transportation.

So what are these companies offering with Proposition 22? Yet another miserly version of a portable safety net. For example, the value of Proposition 22’s offered health benefit is about $1.20 an hour—but that’s well below the value of benefits mandated for employees under state and federal laws (which is more like $4 to $6 per hour, depending on the occupation). And many drivers would not be able to afford their share of the health care premiums, which would range from 20 to 60 percent.

Prop 22 also will not likely offer higher wages because of a complex formula that will be used to determine “minimum wage.” A study by the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center found that if Proposition 22 passes, many drivers could earn as little as $5.64 an hour once their considerable driving expenses are subtracted, which is not even half of California’s minimum wage of $12 per hour.

None of Prop 22’s offerings come close to what drivers will receive if voters reject it and drivers remain regular employees instead of independent contractors. Even worse, Proposition 22 would lock in these serf-like conditions, since it will require an unprecedented 88 percent vote by the state legislature and the governor’s signature to change it.

Uber and Lyft are their own worst enemies. They entered the taxi business 10 years ago, breaking every law in the books, motivated by the Silicon Valley philosophy of “move fast and break things.” Well, they broke it, and now they can’t figure out how to fix it.

As California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has said, “Any business model that relies on short-changing workers in order to make it probably shouldn’t be anywhere, whether California or otherwise.” Ride-hailing has been popular and seemingly has potential, but the public must insist that these companies not profit by shifting all the risk onto their workers and hurting the environment. The vote over Prop 22 is about making a stand for the type of jobs and businesses Californians want to see in their Golden State.


Steven Hill (www.Steven-Hill.com) is the author of Raw Deal: How the Uber Economy and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers and Expand Social Security Now: How to Ensure Americans Get the Retirement They Deserve.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Trump claims he’ll get China to pay America for COVID

REMEMBER THE WALL MEXICO WAS GOING TO PAY FOR?!



 October 15, 2020 By Brad Reed

President Donald Trump’s signature campaign promise in 2016 was to force Mexico to foot the bill for a wall along the southern U.S. border.

That pledge fell through, and the president was forced to declare a “national emergency” in which he pilfered funds from other programs to get money for the project.

Despite this failure, the president on Thursday insisted that he would get China to pay America back for all the damage caused by the novel coronavirus.


As reported by CNN fact checker Daniel Dale, the president told Fox Business’s Stuart Varney that he wasn’t worried about the cost of a proposed stimulus package because the U.S. would eventually get China to repay all the money spent.

“It’s gonna come back anyway,” Trump said, referring to the money. “And we’re gonna take it from China. I’ll tell you right now. It’s coming out of China.”

Varney then asked Trump how he’d make China pay for the COVID stimulus package.

“Well, there’s a lot of ways, okay?” he replied. “There’s a lot of ways. And I’ll figure every one of ’em out. I already have ’em figured out.”

Asked how the US can get coronavirus relief money out of China, as he just claimed, Trump says, "Well, there's a lot of ways. Okay? There's a lot of ways. And I'll figure every one of 'em out. I already have 'em figured out."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 15, 2020

WHITEHOUSE LAUGHS AT CRUZ

NO,NOT SHELDON FROM BIG BANG THEORY

WATCH: Sheldon Whitehouse laughs at Ted Cruz’s attempt to dismiss his exposé of shadowy right-wing judicial groups

 October 14, 2020 By Travis Gettys

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) laughed at Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) during a lunch break in the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett.

The Rhode Island Democrat has spent his time during the hearings exposing the shadowy right-wing network that’s identifying, selecting and promoting judicial nominees, and Whitehouse went on MSNBC during the break to respond to Cruz’s claims.


“Do you want this dark money nonsense or do you not?” Whitehouse said. “Republicans want it, we do not, but since the Republican majority on the Supreme Court created unlimited money in politics and allowed dark money to infiltrate that, we have to fight back, and we have no choice but to do that. I think we’re doing the right thing to do that, but it’s the height of hypocrisy to blame us for participating in a game that they have protected.”

Whitehouse laughed as he called Cruz a hypocrite, and he brushed off host Chuck Todd’s question about who was winning the messaging war.

“I don’t know that it’s a messaging war,” Whitehouse said. “I think it’s a war for integrity in government and a war for transparency and a war to get grubby special interest fingers out of places they don’t belong. I think it’s important that we win that war, and let me be clear about the Federalist Society, if I may. I have no objection to the Federalist Society on law school campuses. I have no objection to them running a think tank. What I object to is being anonymous donors, $250 million by the Washington Post’s estimate, to take over and control who gets nominated to the United States Supreme Court. That is wrong. The Federalist Society should not be in that business, no private entity should be in that business and none of them should accept dark, anonymous money.”

“Both the Republican Party and the Federalist Society are being used by these very big, very wealthy interests and industries to try and control the judiciary,” he added, “and I think it’s happening to a certain extent in plain view.”

Whitehouse then suggested Barrett was being used as a pawn for these right-wing interests, just as Justice Brett Kavanaugh became after some unknown party spent $17 million to get him onto the court.

“I have concerns with her ideologically primarily,” Whitehouse said, “and with the fact that so many Republicans who are involved in her appointment have been signaling what it is that she’s going to do, and this rush to Nov. 10 obviously signals that’s their idea of a torpedo at the Affordable Care Act, even if she doesn’t think so.”

Uganda's Bobi Wine says raid aimed at blocking presidential bid

Issued on: 15/10/2020 
  

The 38-year-old was detained for several hours SUMY SADURNI AFP/File

Kampala (AFP)

Uganda's pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine said Thursday that a raid on his offices was an attempt to block his bid to run in a presidential election due early next year.

Wine, an opposition MP whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, told AFP that security forces had taken documents containing millions of signatures a candidate is required to collect to enter the presidential race.

The 38-year-old was detained for several hours during the raid on Wednesday.

"The raid on Wednesday was surgical. It targeted the seven million signatures supporting my candidature, our campaign materials and to instil fear on a determined nation clamouring for change," Wine said.

"The raid has taken us a step backwards because we are running out of time for my nomination in about two weeks time since most signatures were taken by security during the raid."

He accused the government of veteran President Yoweri Museveni of employing "desperate strategies to stay in power but our supporters are determined to fight back and appendix their signatures on my nomination papers."

The electoral commission will begin its nomination of presidential candidates on November 2.

He also accused the police and army of stealing some 23 million Ugandan shillings ($6,200, 5,300 euros) donated by citizens for the nomination of his National Unity Platform (NUP) parliamentary candidates.

However, police spokesman Fred Enanga denied this, saying "no money was taken from the offices."

Army spokeswoman Flavia Byekwaso said Wednesday that the purpose of the raid was to seize outfits and berets worn by Wine's supporters, that they argue are military wear.

Uganda on September last year designated the red beret and tunic which have become Wine's signature as official military clothing, imposing a punishment of up to five years in prison for any civilian found wearing it.

Wine has defied the directive and urged his supporters to keep wearing the party colours.

Security forces also raided shops manufacturing and selling clothing similar to that worn by Wine's supporters.

Wine has become a popular figure among the youth in a country where the median age is less than 16.

Since becoming an MP in 2017, he has been routinely arrested and put under house arrest, his concerts banned and public rallies dispersed with teargas.

After nearly a quarter century in power, the 76-year-old Museveni is the only president most have known.

Museveni, one of Africa's longest-serving rulers, had the constitution amended for a second time to allow him to run a sixth time in 2021.

© 2020 AFP

Israel's settlement approvals hit record high: watchdog

Issued on: 15/10/2020 

Israeli approvals of settlements in the occupied West Bank has reached a record high in 2020, watchdog Peace Now says -- such as this building site at the Har Gilo settlement near Jerusalem MENAHEM KAHANA AFP


Jerusalem (AFP)

Israel has approved over 12,000 West Bank homes in 2020, a record high for Jewish building in occupied Palestinian territory, settlement watchdog Peace Now said Thursday.

The announcement came after a defence ministry planning committee approved plans for 4,948 more homes during a two-day meeting held Wednesday and Thursday, Peace Now said.

The latest approvals come less than a month after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed agreements to normalise relations with Israel, which in return pledged to freeze its plans to annex swathes of the West Bank.


"These approvals make 2020 the highest year on record in terms of units in settlement plans promoted since Peace Now began recording in 2012," Peace Now said in a statement.

"The count so far is 12,159 units approved in 2020," it added, noting that the committee might hold another round of approvals before the end of the year.

"While de jure annexation may be suspended, the de facto annexation of settlement expansion is clearly continuing," Peace Now said.

"These recent approvals put to rest any speculation about a de facto settlement freeze."

The Palestinians and neighbouring Jordan on Wednesday condemned the recent approvals.

Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said Israel had exploited improving relations in the Gulf and "blind support from the Trump administration".

US President Donald Trump sees the Gulf accords as part of his broader initiative for Middle East peace.

But a controversial plan he unveiled in January gave US blessing to Israeli annexation of large chunks of the West Bank, including the settlements, communities considered illegal under international law.

Israel agreed to delay those plans under its normalisation deal with the UAE, something Emirati officials have cited in response to Arab and Muslim criticism.

The two Gulf countries were only the third and fourth Arab states to normalise relations with Israel, following Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994, and Netanyahu has said he sees others following.

The Gulf agreements broke with years of Arab League policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which made its resolution a precondition for normalising ties with Israel.

Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, more than 450,000 Israelis live in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, alongside some 2.7 million Palestinians.

© 2020 AFP

New HBO-BBC show skewers cut-throat global finance

Issued on: 15/10/2020 -

"Industry" exectutive producer Jane Tranter described director Lena Dunham, shown here, as a "bubble of joy" Angela Weiss AFP/File

London (AFP)

A long-awaited HBO-BBC TV series depicting the toxic culture of a fictional international finance firm's UK graduate programme premiered at the London Film Festival this week ahead of its November release.

"Industry" starkly portrays pervasive issues of race, class and gender poisoning the bank's scheme in the British capital as ambitious twenty-somethings compete for permanent jobs.

Several episodes in the much-anticipated series were shown virtually from Sunday to Wednesday at the 12-day film festival, which is taking place largely online because of coronavirus restrictions.

The first instalment, directed by Hollywood star Lena Dunham, is set to hit the small screen in the United States on November 9, and in Britain and some European countries the next day.

It dives straight into an ugly portrayal of the contentious world of global finance and its cut-throat graduate schemes, with snobbery, racism and sexism all on show.

In one scene in the women's toilets, a seemingly privileged white graduate unflinchingly tells another that a black participant's "narrative" is impossible to compete with.

"Everything's aligned for her," she complains. "I know she went to a shit uni, and I know she's black," adding that meant "tick, tick" in the eyes of politically correct recruiters.

The black character, Harper, played by rising star Myha'la Herrold, overhears the disparaging conversation. She is also sexually assaulted in a taxi by a high-powered female investor client with whom she has just attended a company dinner.

Meanwhile another ethnic minority graduate who has confessed to being made to feel inadequate by fellow participants because of his humble background, commits suicide after printing a page in the wrong font in a lengthy report.

- 'Behind closed doors' -

"Industry" is the brainchild of Wales-based production company Bad Wolf and its co-founding executive producer Jane Tranter, who was behind previous HBO hits "The Night Of" and "Succession" as well as several popular BBC series.

A former head of the British broadcaster's revenue-generating BBC Worldwide arm in the US, she first conceived of the project after reading some years ago about the death of an intern working for an American bank in London.

"It just made you start to think about what goes on behind closed doors and how can it be?" Tranter told a London Film Festival panel discussion this week.

Bad Wolf commissioned two rookie screenwriters, Konrad Kay and Mickey Down -- who had both worked for international banks in London -- to pen the eight-part drama.

"They were fresh out of it, they still had the scent of that life on them," Tranter said, adding: "This great howl of truth kind of came out".

The next steps in the years-long gestation of the series saw HBO get on board, offering up "Girls" creator and actress Dunham to direct the pilot episode.

Tranter recalled her arriving at their Welsh filming studios with an aura of celebrity about her and being a "bubble of joy the whole time".

The executive producer noted those in the series likely to win audiences' allegiances were not "the characters that you normally see winning, and certainly not winning in a bank, on screen".

"You don't really see the message that you've written, if you like, until you pull back and look at it all," Tranter said.

"In 'Industry', when you pull back and look at where all the bad ones are, they are all without exception white men. And definitely men."

© 2020 AFP