BUDDHIST NATIONALISM

Covid-19: Sri Lanka forcibly cremates Muslim baby sparking anger


Fri, December 25, 2020,

Sri Lanka's Muslim minority are fighting to change the Covid-19 cremation rules

The forced cremation of a 20-day-old Muslim baby in Sri Lanka has highlighted the government's controversial order to burn the bodies of all those who died of Covid. Critics say the decision is not based in science and only intended to target the minority community. BBC Sinhala's Saroj Pathirana reports.

Mohamed Fahim and his wife Fathima Shafna were thrilled when their baby boy Shaykh was born on 18 November after a six-year wait.

But their joy was short-lived.

On the night of 7 December, they noticed the baby was struggling to breathe. They rushed him to the capital Colombo's best children's hospital, the Lady Ridgeway.

"They told us the baby was in a severe condition and was suffering from pneumonia. But then, around midnight, they did an antigen test and told us the baby was positive for coronavirus," Mohamed Fahim, who drives a three-wheeler for a living, told BBC Sinhala.

Doctors then tested Mr Fahim and his wife but they were both negative.

"I asked how my baby was positive when both of us, even the mother who was breastfeeding him, were negative?"

Despite tears and pleas, the anxious couple were sent home by officials who said more tests were needed. They were told to call the hospital for updates.

The next day, they were informed that their baby had died of Covid. Mr Fahim repeatedly asked doctors to conduct a PCR test to reconfirm this, but they refused.

Then, doctors asked him to sign a document authorising the cremation of their child, as required by law in Sri Lanka.

Mr Fahim refused: the cremation of bodies is forbidden in Islam, considered a form of mutilation, forbidden by Allah. Muslims also believe in the resurrection of the physical body, and cremation is thought to prevent this.

And he is not alone. Some Muslim families have refused to claim the bodies of their dead, leaving the government to cremate them on state expense, while many will not accept the ashes of their loved ones.

Sri Lankans of all faiths tied ribbons outside the cemetery where Shaykh was cremated

Mr Fahim says he repeatedly asked for his baby's body to be handed back to him, but officials said no. The next day, he was told his son's body was being taken to the crematorium.

"I went there but I didn't enter the hall," he says. "How can you watch your baby son being burnt?"

'No evidence'

Political, religious and community leaders representing the Muslim community have repeatedly requested the government to change its "cremate only" policy, pointing to the more than 190 countries allowing burials, and World Health Organization advice. It has even taken its fight to the Supreme Court, but the cases were dismissed without an explanation.

The government argues burials could contaminate ground water, based on the say-so of an expert committee, the composition and qualifications of which are unknown.

World-renowned virologist Prof Malik Peiris, however, has questioned the theory.

"Covid-19 is not a waterborne disease," Prof Peiris told the BBC. "And I haven't seen any evidence to suggest it spreads through dead bodies. A virus can only multiply in a living cell. Once a person dies, the ability of the viruses to multiply decreases."

He added: "Dead bodies aren't buried right in running water. Once you bury the body six feet under wrapped in impermeable wrapping, it is highly unlikely it would contaminate running water."

Muslim groups have filed court petitions to change the cremation rule

There had not been much sympathy for the plight of the Muslim community - but the forced cremation of baby Shaykh has changed that.

Soon after the news broke, men, women, clergy from other faiths, rights activists and opposition politicians gathered outside the crematorium, and tied white ribbons on the gate. Many were from the majority Sinhala community.

People have also taken to social media to condemn what happened.

Activist and lawyer Thyagi Ruwanpathirana, who was among those who tied white cloth on the gate, tweeted about her experience: "While I was tying it, a mother and daughter duo crossed the road and joined me with their own white cloths. Till I came they were worried someone may be watching.

"I couldn't quite make out what the mother was trying to say at first because we all had our masks on. Then she said, 'The baby was only two-days-old no? Sin. This way at least my heart will be satisfied'."

The white cloths disappeared overnight, believed to have been removed by authorities, but the anger did not.

The white cloths which adorned the gates disappeared overnight

Hilmy Ahmed, the vice-president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, told the BBC it was clear this was all part of a "racist" agenda, targeting the Muslim minority.

"The government doesn't seem to be responding to anything based on science," he said. "They don't seem to take into consideration the advice of virologists or microbiologists or epidemiologists. This is racist agenda of a few in the technical committee."

"This is probably the last straw for Muslims because nobody expected this little baby to be cremated," he added. "That also without even showing the child to the parents."

But the government denies that the measures are aimed at Muslims, pointing to the fact Sinhala Buddhists are having to cremate their loved ones within 24 hours, which also goes against their traditions.

"Sometimes we will have to do things that we don't like too much," the cabinet spokesman, Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, told the BBC.

"Everybody has to make some kind of sacrifices during this Covid pandemic. I understand this is a very sensitive issue. Even my Muslim friends are calling me and asking me to help them. But as a government we have to take the decisions based on science for the sake of all concerned."

The government says it is looking for suitable land to bury Muslim Covid-19 fatalities

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has, meanwhile, instructed authorities to find a suitable dry land to bury those dying from coronavirus, his office said in a statement.

Mannar in northern Sri Lanka is thought to be considered by the authorities as a possible location. But it is not being seen as viable by the Muslim community - many of them were driven out of there by Tamil separatists in 1990. They fear that burials there will cause more tension.

And Mr Ahmed has dismissed the offer as "a carrot they are holding every time the pressure" increases. After all, the prime minister has issued similar instructions before, but Muslims are still being cremated.

Meanwhile, Mr Fahil says he still can't come to terms with what happened to his baby son, Shaykh.

"My only wish is that no other person should go through this pain. I don't wish any other child to experience what happened to my son."

India detains 75 in Kashmir after local election

INDIA LOST ELECTION TO KASHMIR OPPOSITION

#KASHMIR IS #INDIA'S #GAZA


FILE PHOTO: Mehbooba Mufti addresses a news conference in Srinagar
Sat, December 26, 202

By Fayaz Bukhari

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - India's government detained at least 75 Kashmiri political leaders and activists to forestall political unrest after an alliance of Kashmir's regional political parties won a local election, leaders and a police official said on Saturday.

The District Council election, concluded early this week, was the first such exercise since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government last year revoked the special status of the Muslim-majority, Indian-controlled region. New Delhi then cracked down on the opposition and rounded up hundreds of people to preempt protests and violence.

The new detentions, including separatist leaders and members of the banned Jamat-e-Islami group, were for preventive custody, said a senior police official, who asked not to be identified in line with official policy.

India and Pakistan have claimed all of the Kashmir region since the partition of British-ruled India into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-majority India in 1947. Two of the three wars they have fought have been over the Himalayan region.

The detentions undermine the verdict of the people, said Imran Nabi Dar, spokesman for the National Conference, a regional party and a key member of the alliance.

The alliance's victory shows that Kashmiris have not accepted Modi's decision to end Kashmir's special status, said Omar Abdullah, a former chief minister and head of the National Conference.

After their release from lengthy detention, Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, chief of the Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party, announced the alliance in October to seek a peaceful restoration of Kashmir's autonomy.

(Reporting by Fayaz Bukhari in Srinigar; Writing by Mayank Bhardwaj; Editing by William Mallard)

In pursuing historic climate change agenda, Biden may find surprising ally
Adam Edelman
Sat, December 26, 2020

President-elect Joe Biden has made no secret that tackling climate change will be one of his top priorities. But to enact his platform to reduce global warming he may find an unexpected ally: Republicans.

Biden campaigned on the most ambitious climate agenda in history: It included plans for pioneering green energy and infrastructure projects and proposals to address environmental racism. Large chunks of his "Build Back Better" economic agenda are explicitly tied to climate-related policies.

Biden has said he will re-enter the U.S. in the Paris climate accord on his first day in office and will prioritize undoing dozens of environmental regulatory rollbacks put into place by President Donald Trump — all via executive action.


But what comes after that will be the hard part: trying to implement his climate agenda through legislation.

That's where he may find a partnership with Republicans on Capitol Hill.

While some in the GOP remain in steadfast denial that human-caused climate change even exists, dozens of Republican lawmakers have acknowledged that the time has come to address the crisis and have put forward policies that have gained some degree of bipartisan traction.

None, however, have approached the level of reform Biden has proposed. As a result, his administration will have to deftly maneuver balancing the major progressive climate actions he's promised with his desire to reach bipartisan solutions and promote political unity — something he's also promised.

Interviews with lawmakers from both parties and climate advocacy organizations on both ends of the political spectrum suggest the appetite in both parties for climate change policy is robust, making the topic a likely, even if unexpected, area for bipartisan cooperation under the new president.

Much of how Biden might navigate the issue remains tied up in two closely watched Senate runoff elections in Georgia next month. If Democrats win both, they win control of the chamber and with it leadership posts of pivotal climate-oriented committees, which would give Biden a leg up in setting the rules of the road on the issue. But if Democrats fall short, Republicans will maintain Senate control and with it the ability to advance their own climate bills.

Either way, whatever majority exists will be a narrow one, making bipartisan compromise, desired or not, the only way forward on legislation.

"We see a huge opportunity going into this administration," said Quillian Robinson, a spokesperson for the American Conservation Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for conservative solutions to climate change. "Divided government may look like it eliminates opportunity, but, really, it's a chance for durable climate solutions, instead of just flip-flopping from one administration's executive orders to another's."
Opportunities for compromise

Biden has promised to rejoin the Paris climate agreement, to sign executive orders that limit oil and gas drilling on public lands and in public waters, increase gas mileage standards for vehicles and block the construction of specific fossil fuel pipelines. He can do all of that through executive action.

Biden has also promised to pursue a 100 percent clean electricity standard by 2035 (a proposal that could mean the shuttering or total renovation of all coal-fired and gas-fired power plants in the U.S.) and has called for getting the U.S. to net-zero emissions by 2050, at the latest. He's also proposed a $2 trillion investment in renewable energy projects, with 40 percent of the funds benefiting communities of color that have been harmed by pollutants. He might not find a ton of Republican support on those ideas.

Biden has made it clear, especially through his personnel choices, that he sees the topic as one that merits an all-of-government approach that uses Cabinet agencies like the Transportation and Interior departments to help build new green infrastructure and incentivize developing green energy sources, as well as tasking the State Department with corralling other international powers to similarly focus on climate policy and carbon emissions.

It's in these areas — especially as it pertains to the investment in and development of green energy sources, green technologies and green infrastructure — where he could end up finding common ground.

The Growing Climate Solutions Act, sponsored by Sens. Mike Braun, R-Ind.; Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., focuses on carbon-capture technologies in the agricultural sector, while Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Whitehouse have put together another bipartisan bill focused on increasing carbon-capture methods that occur naturally within ocean and coastal ecosystems.

Earlier this year, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., began pushing a new conservative climate policy effort along with seven of his Republican colleagues — meant to rival the progressive Green New Deal — including Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, who introduced legislation, titled the New Energy Frontier, focused on developing carbon-capture technologies.

"This all needs to start with technological innovation," Crenshaw said in an interview. While Crenshaw said he strongly opposes re-entering the U.S. in the Paris agreement and largely disagrees with large chunks of Biden's environmental plans, he is willing to work with the administration on the proposals that are part of his bill.

"I think we could be able to agree on the policies I've put forward," he said.

Meanwhile, Reps. David McKinley, R-W.Va., and Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., have proposed a 10-year public and private partnership to invest in clean energy and infrastructure and subsequent new regulations.

Some on the left have bashed those proposals as being too narrow — many emphasize the contradiction between promoting technologies that sequester carbon from carbon-emitting plants and phasing out such carbon-emitting plants — but there appears to be ample space for compromise among Democrats, too.

Whitehouse, who has lent his name to several compromise bills in the Senate, said there’s a great need for Democrats to essentially try anything, and everything, that might combat climate change.

Asked by NBC News whether the Biden administration and its allies in Congress should prioritize the president-elect's agenda or bipartisan compromise, Whitehouse replied, "Both."

"The best outcome will be if we're aggressive and bipartisan at the same time,” Whitehouse, who has both pressed for progressive climate change policies and also co-sponsored more modest bipartisan legislation, wrote in an email to NBC News.

"The Biden plan is broad enough to encompass both, and we should pursue both. But to succeed, the administration must first set the conditions for victory," Whitehouse wrote.

"Real bipartisanship is best achieved from a position of strength," he added.

In a statement, the Biden transition reiterated that the president-elect had prioritized climate change and would implement his policies with "both legislative and executive action."

The strength that Whitehouse referenced could be achieved by kicking off the administration with a flurry of executive actions on climate change, as Biden has promised. But with a thin majority in the House and the Senate close to an even split, regardless of who wins the Georgia runoffs, Biden will almost certainly have to make good on another set of campaign promises he's made frequently: bipartisan cooperation.

Groups on both sides are ready for it.

"Yes, there will be obstruction from some Republicans, but I really do believe there will still be so many chances for bipartisanship on combating climate change," said Michael Brune, the Sierra Club's executive director.

Brune pointed to clean energy standards, accelerating the development of new energy technologies, growing American jobs in the green sector and saving consumers money on their energy bills as solid areas for consensus.

Conservative environmental groups have struck the same tone, even praising some of Biden’s more ambitious proposals.

Robinson, of the conservative American Conservation Coalition, said "incentives are really lining up both politically and economically," making significant investment in green technologies and infrastructure more possible than ever before.

Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate activist and Democrat who ran for president emphasizing an ambitious environmental justice platform, agreed, too, telling NBC News that "the country has moved on the issue."

"I think the business community has very clearly moved; I think Republicans have moved," said Steyer, who helped lead the conversation among 2020 Democrats on climate change but who is not currently working with the administration on the issue.

"This is not a partisan issue anymore,” he said.

But he also made clear that Biden, having won the presidency after making climate change such a big part of his campaign, should get to set the terms of the conversation.

"We won the argument," he said. "Now the moment is here. It's time to bring it home."

Google told its scientists to 'strike a positive tone' in AI research - documents

By Paresh Dave and Jeffrey Dastin

© Reuters/ARND WIEGMANN FILE PHOTO: 

An illuminated Google logo is seen inside an office building in Zurich

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Google this year moved to tighten control over its scientists' papers by launching a "sensitive topics" review, and in at least three cases requested authors refrain from casting its technology in a negative light, according to internal communications and interviews with researchers involved in the work.

Google's new review procedure asks that researchers consult with legal, policy and public relations teams before pursuing topics such as face and sentiment analysis and categorizations of race, gender or political affiliation, according to internal webpages explaining the policy.

"Advances in technology and the growing complexity of our external environment are increasingly leading to situations where seemingly inoffensive projects raise ethical, reputational, regulatory or legal issues," one of the pages for research staff stated. Reuters could not determine the date of the post, though three current employees said the policy began in June.

Google declined to comment for this story.

The "sensitive topics" process adds a round of scrutiny to Google's standard review of papers for pitfalls such as disclosing of trade secrets, eight current and former employees said.

For some projects, Google officials have intervened in later stages. A senior Google manager reviewing a study on content recommendation technology shortly before publication this summer told authors to "take great care to strike a positive tone," according to internal correspondence read to Reuters.

The manager added, "This doesn't mean we should hide from the real challenges" posed by the software.

Subsequent correspondence from a researcher to reviewers shows authors "updated to remove all references to Google products." A draft seen by Reuters had mentioned Google-owned YouTube.

Four staff researchers, including senior scientist Margaret Mitchell, said they believe Google is starting to interfere with crucial studies of potential technology harms.

"If we are researching the appropriate thing given our expertise, and we are not permitted to publish that on grounds that are not in line with high-quality peer review, then we're getting into a serious problem of censorship," Mitchell said.

Google states on its public-facing website that its scientists have "substantial" freedom.

Tensions between Google and some of its staff broke into view this month after the abrupt exit of scientist Timnit Gebru, who led a 12-person team with Mitchell focused on ethics in artificial intelligence software (AI).

Gebru says Google fired her after she questioned an order not to publish research claiming AI that mimics speech could disadvantage marginalized populations. Google said it accepted and expedited her resignation. It could not be determined whether Gebru's paper underwent a "sensitive topics" review.

Google Senior Vice President Jeff Dean said in a statement this month that Gebru's paper dwelled on potential harms without discussing efforts underway to address them.

Dean added that Google supports AI ethics scholarship and is "actively working on improving our paper review processes, because we know that too many checks and balances can become cumbersome."

'SENSITIVE TOPICS'

The explosion in research and development of AI across the tech industry has prompted authorities in the United States and elsewhere to propose rules for its use. Some have cited scientific studies showing that facial analysis software and other AI can perpetuate biases or erode privacy.

Google in recent years incorporated AI throughout its services, using the technology to interpret complex search queries, decide recommendations on YouTube and autocomplete sentences in Gmail. Its researchers published more than 200 papers in the last year about developing AI responsibly, among more than 1,000 projects in total, Dean said.

Studying Google services for biases is among the "sensitive topics" under the company's new policy, according to an internal webpage. Among dozens of other "sensitive topics" listed were the oil industry, China, Iran, Israel, COVID-19, home security, insurance, location data, religion, self-driving vehicles, telecoms and systems that recommend or personalize web content.

The Google paper for which authors were told to strike a positive tone discusses recommendation AI, which services like YouTube employ to personalize users' content feeds. A draft reviewed by Reuters included "concerns" that this technology can promote "disinformation, discriminatory or otherwise unfair results" and "insufficient diversity of content," as well as lead to "political polarization."

The final publication instead says the systems can promote "accurate information, fairness, and diversity of content." The published version, entitled "What are you optimizing for? Aligning Recommender Systems with Human Values," omitted credit to Google researchers. Reuters could not determine why.

A paper this month on AI for understanding a foreign language softened a reference to how the Google Translate product was making mistakes following a request from company reviewers, a source said. The published version says the authors used Google Translate, and a separate sentence says part of the research method was to "review and fix inaccurate translations."

For a paper published last week, a Google employee described the process as a "long-haul," involving more than 100 email exchanges between researchers and reviewers, according to the internal correspondence.

The researchers found that AI can cough up personal data and copyrighted material - including a page from a "Harry Potter" novel - that had been pulled from the internet to develop the system.

A draft described how such disclosures could infringe copyrights or violate European privacy law, a person familiar with the matter said. Following company reviews, authors removed the legal risks, and Google published the paper.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave and Jeffrey Dastin; editing by Jonathan Weber and Edward Tobin)

Biden allies push back on sweeping plan to promote fair housing

President Donald Trump accused Joe Biden during the 2020 campaign of seeking to “destroy the beautiful suburbs” by supporting a sweeping Obama-era fair housing rule that Trump had scrapped.© Seth Wenig/AP Photo This case touches a special nerve because the Black and Hispanic home-ownership rate is so low and minorities are often relegated to substandard housing.

Now, with Biden planning to reinstate the rule, he's likely to run into opposition again — this time from members of his own party.

Lost in the uproar over the Trump administration’s revocation of the rule in July was that even some Democratic localities had deep misgivings about the 2015 regulation, which was intended to bolster the 1968 Fair Housing Act, a landmark anti-discrimination law of the civil rights era.

Local housing officials from both Democratic and Republican counties saw the rule as a rigid, burdensome directive; many were confused about how to comply with its complex requirements.

“Our biggest problem with this was that a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate,” said Jennifer Eby, community and resource services manager for Douglas County, a Denver suburb. "It was, from our perspective, very burdensome."

The resistance to the rule suggests Biden will face obstacles even from some of his own allies over the more dramatic plans for his presidency, which include everything from overhauling environmental regulations to reviving the union movement.

Yet this case touches a special nerve because the Black and Hispanic home-ownership rate is so low and minorities are often relegated to substandard housing. The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule was intended to help remedy that, and Trump's opposition to it sparked charges of racism.

The rule would have required local jurisdictions to actively track and address patterns of poverty and segregation with a checklist of 92 questions — or else lose access to federal housing funds.

Critics decried the process as both onerous and costly, an argument made by Trump's Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson — the only Black member of his Cabinet — when he rescinded the rule. But local government officials and public housing authorities were also among those complaining.

While Trump framed the issue as a Democratic plan to force low-income housing down the throats of suburban residents, the concerns of critics about the rule largely fall under two broad complaints: that the directive from Washington, D.C., is too rigid to allow for local input and differences among jurisdictions, and that it is so complicated that compliance often requires outside help.

Several left-leaning cities, including Los Angeles and St. Paul, Minn., complained of having to hire pricey consultants to navigate the rule’s complex requirements.

Housing officials in other states voiced similar concerns with the top-down approach. A group representing over 75 public housing authorities in California criticized the original rule’s “highly prescriptive framework” in a public comment on a proposal to revamp the rule.

“There also was no additional funding that was put into it,” Eby said. “So there’s a lot of extra analysis to do, and a lot of work to put in and no new funding to do it. When that happens, you’re essentially taking money from services.”

Eby also has concerns with the list of “contributing factors” to housing segregation that the rule requires local jurisdictions to track and make progress on addressing. For one thing, she said, the criteria for making progress weren’t clear. But the factors themselves were also broad, she said.

“In a lot of ways, the contributing factors that they're asking communities to look at are not necessarily vectors that are at all under their control,” she said, pointing to factors like transportation and school quality.

Ultimately, Douglas County commissioners decided it wasn’t worth the possible penalties and compliance burdens. In 2016, the county pulled out of HUD's Community Development Block Grant program — forgoing about $750,000 a year in federal funding — as a result of concerns about ceding control over local decision-making, despite easily passing earlier fair housing assessments.

Biden’s transition website lists racial equity as one of four key issues he will focus on immediately — alongside the raging pandemic, economic collapse and climate change. And housing advocates who have pressed their case with Biden’s HUD landing team say they’re confident the incoming administration believes reinstating the 2015 rule is an urgent priority. The Biden transition team didn't respond to a request for comment.

The confusion over the rule — and what reinstituting it will look like — comes as the Black homeownership rate already lags behind that of white people by about 30 points. Lingering effects from the economic crisis could drive it still wider, exacerbating longstanding inequities caused by decades of government-led segregation.

“Blacks and Latinos are more likely to live in health deserts with fewer health care facilities, dentists, primary care physicians,” said Lisa Rice, president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance. The 2015 rule “was designed to fix all of these structural issues. And instead of enforcing AFFH, Trump has eviscerated it.”

The data and assessment tools folded into the original Obama rule may need to be “updated,” she said, but the regulation itself is critical to addressing systemic racism.

“It was clear from Day One that the Trump administration did not understand fair housing, and I personally tried to educate key leadership at HUD about fair housing issues,” Rice added.

Carson suspended the regulation in 2018 before replacing it with a weaker version in July. Because the 2015 rule was already on the books, the incoming administration can simply revoke the replacement regulation and revert to the original without having to go through the long process of promulgating a new rule.

The hard part will be implementing it. Critics stressed that they support the rule's goals — they just want something workable.© Mark Wilson/Getty Images The Department of Housing and Urban Development building is seen in Washington, D.C.

HUD in 2018 withdrew a key computer tool that local governments were supposed to use to analyze patterns of segregation, concentrated poverty, residential health hazards and disparities in access to things like transportation, schools and employment opportunities. They were supposed to use that data to draft an “Assessment of Fair Housing” plan addressing discriminatory barriers, which they would then submit to HUD.

Many areas had trouble with the tool. For the 49 jurisdictions in the first group to submit fair housing assessment plans between October 2016 and December 2017, only 37 percent were initially accepted, according to HUD. While another 28 percent of the plans were accepted after jurisdictions amended them with HUD’s technical assistance, 35 percent were ultimately rejected.

Local public housing agencies had hoped that HUD would streamline and improve the tool, which will need to be revived and updated.

“The new administration definitely needs to get a hold of what has been done to gut this thing,” said Marla Newman, director of community development for Winston-Salem, N.C.

Newman said Winston-Salem was “one of the few jurisdictions that actually got a plan approved” after hiring a consultant to help draft it. HUD was making progress on tweaking the rule to make it more accessible before the Trump administration withdrew it, she said.

“We were starting to get good mapping tools — we were really on a path to a good place — and we need to pick back up where the [Obama] administration left off” with the rule, Newman said.

In the meantime, plenty of jurisdictions will have to shell out money they can hardly spare to consultants to tap desperately needed federal housing funds.

“The stakes in developing an acceptable AFFH are high, as jurisdictions face a reduction in funding if they fail,” the Seattle Housing Authority told HUD in 2018, urging the agency to consider providing support to public housing agencies and “taking PHA size into consideration in its expectations and requirements.”

The National Community Development Association, a bipartisan nonprofit representing over 400 local government agencies, also criticized the original rule’s “cookie-cutter approach” in a public comment submitted in March.

It’s a problem “for the small cities that get a small amount of [block grant] funding every year,” association Executive Director Vicki Watson said. “There’s quite a few cities that get less than $500,000 a year but they have the same requirements as a New York or a San Francisco — there’s a disconnect there.”

“We support affirmatively furthering fair housing, but we think it should be more flexible,” she added. “There just needs to be more funding and more flexibility, particularly for smaller cities.”

Astronomers Detect 'Intriguing Signal' Coming From Proxima Centauri 

IT'S A ROBOCALL

(CSIRO/A. Cherney)
SPACE

RAFI LETZTER, LIVE SCIENCE
25 DECEMBER 2020


Astronomers hunting for radio signals from alien civilizations have detected an "intriguing signal" from the direction of Proxima Centauri, the nearest star system to the sun, The Guardian reported.


The researchers are still preparing a paper on the discovery, and the data have not been made public, according to The Guardian. But the signal is reportedly a narrow beam of 980 MHz radio waves detected in April and May 2019 at the Parkes telescope in Australia.

The Parkes telescope is part of the US$100 million Breakthrough Listen project to hunt for radio signals from technological sources beyond the solar system. The 980 MHz signal appeared once and was never detected again. That frequency is important because, as Scientific American points out, that band of radio waves is typically lacking signals from human-made craft and satellites.

Breakthrough Listen detects unusual radio signals all the time - between earthly sources, the Sun's natural radio output and natural sources beyond the Solar System, there are a lot of radio waves bouncing around out there.

But this signal appears to have come directly from the Proxima Centauri system, just 4.2 light-years from Earth. Even more tantalizing: The signal reportedly shifted slightly while it was being observed, in a way that resembled the shift caused by the movement of a planet. Proxima Centauri has one known rocky world 17 percent larger than Earth, and one known gas giant.


The Guardian quoted an unnamed source with apparent access to the data on this signal as saying "It is the first serious candidate for an alien communication since the 'Wow! Signal,'" a famous radio signal detected in 1977 that also resembled a technosignature.

But The Guardian cautioned that this signal is "likely to have a mundane origin too."

Such more mundane sources include a comet or its hydrogen cloud, which also could explain the Wow! Signal.

Penn State University's Sofia Sheikh, who led the analysis of the signal for Breakthrough Listen, voiced her excitement about it: "It's the most exciting signal that we've found in the Breakthrough Listen project, because we haven't had a signal jump through this many of our filters before," Sheikh told Scientific American, adding that the signal is now being referred to as Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1, or BLC1.

An inherent challenge in searching for alien communications is that no one knows how aliens might communicate, and no one knows all the potential natural sources of radio waves in the Universe. So when signals arrive that seem even plausibly technological and don't come with easy natural explanations, it's tempting to make the jump to aliens.

So far, no data on this signal is public, and it's likely that even when it does become public there will be no conclusive answers; that's what happened with the Wow! Signal after all.

At first look, full post-Brexit text goes beyond a 'Canada-style' deal

Faisal Islam
Economics editor
@faisalislamon Twitter

IMAGE COPYRIGHTREUTERS

BBC News has obtained a full copy of the post-Brexit trade deal agreed by the UK and the EU, setting out the shape of their relationship for years to come. Parliament will vote on the plan next week, but so far Downing Street has published only a short summary, rather than the full document. Our economics editor, Faisal Islam, has been looking at the details.

Late into Christmas Eve, UK government and European lawyers were hard at work completing the process of updating the text of the post-Brexit trade deal into formal language, a process known as legally scrubbing.

Because whatever the general relief over the broad outline of this deal, there are nearly 1,300 pages of legal text that will determine every aspect of the hundreds of billions in trade between the UK and EU.
Some of the thorniest negotiation points have made it into the final text.

10 things to look for in the Brexit deal

How many trade deals has the UK done so far?

What just happened with Brexit?

Innocuous and arcane sounding articles and annexes could have a huge impact on industry and government policy.

For example, the restrictions compensation for unfair subsidies to companies "do not apply" in situations such as natural disasters, exempting the EU's huge current pandemic support package for aviation, aerospace, climate change and electric cars.

A late compromise

On electric cars, an annexe reveals a late compromise.

The EU had sought to offer tariff-free access only to those British cars that are made mostly with European parts. That will now be phased in over six years, but is less generous than the UK ask.

This should be just about enough for Japanese owners of massive UK plants Nissan and Toyota's current production, but raises questions about future rounds of investment.

There is a clear commitment not to lower standards on the environment, workers' rights and climate change from those that exist now and mechanisms to enforce it.

But there is also a mutual right to "rebalance" the agreement if there are "significant divergences" in future that is capable of "impacting trade".

These go way beyond standard free-trade agreements such as those between the EU and Canada or Japan, reflecting the UK's history in the single market.

The text reads like these mechanisms are designed to be used, and created to ensure that both sides remain close to each other's regulatory orbit.

EU-UK post-Brexit trade talks - BBC News

Opinion: Even with a deal, Brexit remains a sham

The UK's exit from the EU won't be quite as hard as some had feared. Nevertheless, the move remains a historic mistake, writes DW's Bernd Riegert.




Britain's prime minister and European Union negotiators apparently love Brexit drama. They can prove to an annoyed public, particularly in the UK, that they fought to the end to preserve their own interests. The Christmas Eve deal could have been made three or even six months ago. Aside from a few marginal changes surrounding fishing rights, it's more or less what the EU offered the UK over the summer.

With a blend of chutzpa and naive populism, Britain's impish prime minister, Boris Johnson, is presenting the deal to his citizenry as a resounding success. The promises from the Brexit referendum in 2016 will all be implemented, he says. That is wrong. The deal is a classic compromise, like all trade agreements. No single regulation is better than what the British already had as members of the EU. The comprehensive agreement that is now set to take force is a slimmed-down internal market that sets the stage for both sides to move further apart from one another in the future. From climate protection and science to transportation and the fight against terrorism, the UK and EU want to continue their trusting cooperation. Whether this trust is still justified after the UK's antics during the negotiation process remains to be seen from the European perspective.

Victim of neo-nationalism

One example of those who lose out in Brexit is British students, who can longer participate in the Erasmus exchange program. It was deemed too expensive for the UK government. It will also now be more difficult for young academics from abroad to study at expensive British universities. That will ultimately be a higher price for British society to pay than whatever the Erasmus fees cost.

Bernd Riegert is DW's correspondent in Brussels

This sensible program was one of the many sacrifices made at the Brexiteers' altar of neo-nationalism. The shrewd populist Boris Johnson pulled at the British public's sovereignty heartstrings. He claims to have taken back control that the UK — but, in truth, he never really relinquished to Brussels. No EU member state is ruled by a diffuse occupying power in distant Belgium. Everyone collaborates on legislation. Everyone is beholden to the court of law. Nobody is forced into membership.

The misleading notion of sovereignty

Johnson is now talking about how Great Britain has become independent again. Independent from whom? The prime minister and his Brexit cronies are clinging to an idea of sovereignty from the last century, when British ships ruled the seas as part of a global empire. Today, any state that wishes to participate in trade and international relations must give up a small portion of its sovereignty to enjoy the benefits of cooperation. Membership in the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, NATO, and also the EU, comes with obligations and rights both big and small. Nobody has to give up independence and statehood for this.

In the same vein as the Brexiteers, there are the populists in countries like Poland and Hungary, who also feel patronized, occupied or even enslaved by the EU, an organization to which they voluntarily belong.

Watch video 02:10 EU, UK breathe sigh of relief over last-minute trade deal

In the middle of a pandemic that has hit the UK hard once again, Boris Johnson should have realized that there are more important things than chasing nationalist fantasies. The links between Britain and the EU are too close. Just two days of the Channel Tunnel being shut showed him how vulnerable the UK is. This experience may have spurred London to reach an agreement with Brussels. A hard exit from the internal market into a world of WTO rules would have been a death knell for the already badly shaken British economy.

Hot air

A year ago, after Brexit became official, Boris Johnson spun the yarn that the UK would throw off the EU shackles and negotiate lucrative trade deals around the world. What has become of that? Nothing. There is not even the idea of an agreement with the two other largest trading partners outside the EU: China and the United States. The UK has signed agreements with Singapore and Japan, but they are almost identical to deals that the EU had already negotiated with those two countries. The British simply copied them. These two agreements also only account for a small fraction of annual trade volume.

The bottom line is that Brexit is and remains a sham. The British were better off with the EU — and without the bloviating Boris Johnson

Brexit deal: The day after
Friday, 25 December 2020

© Belga

Exhausted but relieved, the EU and the UK announced on Thursday afternoon, Christmas Eve, that they had managed to agree on the terms of their future cooperation and a free trade agreement that will provide for zero tariffs and zero quotas on all goods that comply with the rules of origin.

On the brink of the abyss, the two parties were very close to give up, with the UK crashing out from the EU without any deal. It would require a last-minute direct interference by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to bridge the differences in the remaining sticking point, fisheries, an economically insignificant issue but loaded with symbolic value.

At the press conference yesterday afternoon, von der Leyen attributed the positive outcome to EU’s strong negotiation position, based on the fact that it is the world’s largest single market. “The UK would have been harder hit than the EU in case of a no-deal,” she explained and highlighted the huge step taken in the fisheries to reach the agreement.

The full agreement with its 1,200 pages has not been published yet, nor has the Commission yet published the usual list of Questions & Answers to explain in some more detail what has been agreed. In the meantime, an overview with two columns has been published, showing the consequences of the UK leaving the EU and the benefits of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

Fish – free movement

Outsiders may wonder why it was so difficult to agree on fisheries and why the issue threatened to block the whole deal. The annual turnover of EU fishing vessels from British waters is only around €650 million, compared with €850million for the UK vessels. The UK vessels catch about 45 % of the fish, accounts for about 55 % of the total value, and exports 80 % of the catches.

In other words, a small but integrated sector where UK and EU vessels are catching fish, which do not any know any borders, and which would be become more expense if customs fees would have been imposed on the export. For the UK, it was about sovereignty over its territorial waters in a narrow sense of the word. EU coastal members insisted on continuing their fishing in the same waters.

According to the deal, UK becomes an independent coastal state and is free to decide on access to its waters and fishing grounds, in respect of its international obligations. It now leaves the Common Fisheries Policy – the EU’s joint legal framework ensuring equal access to waters, stable quota-sharing arrangements and the sustainable management of marine resources.

In the new arrangements, most will remain more or less the same with reciprocal access rights to fish in each-other’s waters during a 5.5 years transition period. During the transition period, the EU will transfer 25 % of its current fish quotas to the UK. EU vessels will continue to fish in UK coastal waters, including its extended territorial waters (6 – 12 nautical miles) if they already have been doing it.

At the end of the period, EU and UK will conduct annual discussions on fishing quota and access to each-other’s territorial waters. The assumption today is that the access will continue but any side can refuse access to its waters, in which case the other side might trigger compensatory measures, for example customs on fish.

EU Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier was satisfied with the fish deal and promised that, “the EU will be present alongside European fishermen to support them. This is our commitment”.

People – no free movement

“British fish will still be free to cross the channel but British citizens will have to ask permission before they can live, work, love, study or retire in an EU member state,” commented Roger Casale, a former British MP and CEO of citizens rights NGO New Europeans.

Barnier was also less satisfied with the deal on free movement of people and expressed regret that, “The ambition in terms of citizen mobility does not match our historical ties. And again, it is the choice of the British government.”

On the positive side, EU citizens with legal residence in the UK and vice versa UK citizens in the EU are protected by the Withdrawal Agreement and will keep all their EU rights for life. But new rules will apply as of 1 January 2021, allowing for some mobility but not for the free movement which is in place in the EU:

UK nationals will no longer have the freedom to work, study, start a business or live in the EU. Visas will be required for stays over 90 days. However, coordination of some social security benefits such as old-age pensions and healthcare will make it easier to work abroad and any pre-existing build-up of contributions to national insurance will not be lost.

For EU citizens, a non-discrimination clause will ensure equal treatment for short-term visas. Coordination of some social security benefits (old-age and survivors’ pensions, pre-retirement, healthcare, maternity / paternity, accidents at work) will also make it easier to work abroad and no rights will be lost.

“A bad trade deal is arguably better than no deal at all but will not fundamentally mitigate the negative consequences of Britain’s decision to leave the EU,” added Roger Casale. “One casualty of the deal will be the end of free movement between the EU and the UK. The EU is not just a union of states and markets, it is also a union of people.”

M. Apelblat
The Brussels Times

No Time to Rest: EU Nations Assess Brexit Trade Deal with UK
By Associated Press
December 25, 2020 

Ambassadors to The European Union gather ahead of a special meeting of The Committee of the Permanent Representatives of the Governments of the Member States to the European Union in Brussels on Dec. 25, 2020.

BRUSSELS - The fast-track ratification of the post-Brexit trade deal between the U.K. and the European Union got underway on Christmas Day as ambassadors from the bloc's 27 nations started assessing the accord that takes effect in a week.

At Friday's exceptional meeting, the ambassadors were briefed about the details of the draft treaty by the EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier.

They are set to reconvene again on Monday and have informed lawmakers at the European Parliament that they intend to take a decision on the preliminary application of the deal within days.

While voicing their sadness at the rupture with Britain, EU leaders are relieved that the tortuous aftermath of the Brexit vote had come to a conclusion in Thursday's agreement about future trade ties.

All member states are expected to back the agreement as is the European Parliament, which can only give its consent retrospectively as it can't reconvene until 2021. British lawmakers have to give their approval, too, and are being summoned next week to vote on the accord.

European Union chief negotiator Michel Barnier carries a binder of the Brexit trade deal during a special meeting at the European Council building in Brussels, Dec. 25, 2020.

Both sides claim the agreement protects their cherished goals.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it gives the U.K. control over its money, borders, laws and fishing grounds. The EU says it protects its single market of around 450 million people and contains safeguards to ensure the U.K. does not unfairly undercut the bloc's standards.

Johnson hailed the agreement as a "new beginning" for the U.K. in its relationship with European neighbors. Opposition leaders, even those who are minded to back it because it's better than a no-deal scenario, said it adds unnecessary costs on businesses and fails to provide a clear framework for the crucial services sector, which accounts for 80% of the British economy.

In a Christmas message, Johnson sought to sell the deal to a weary public after years of Brexit-related wrangling since the U.K. voted narrowly to leave the EU in 2016. Although the U.K. formally left the bloc on Jan. 31, it remains in a transition period tied to EU rules until the end of this year.

Without a trade deal, tariffs would have been imposed on trade between the two sides starting Jan. 1. Both sides would have suffered in that scenario, with the British economy taking a bigger hit at least in the near-term, as it is more reliant on trade with the EU than vice versa.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a news conference in Downing Street in London, Dec. 24, 2020.

"I have a small present for anyone who may be looking for something to read in that sleepy post-Christmas lunch moment, and here it is, tidings, glad tidings of great joy, because this is a deal," Johnson said in his video message, brandishing a sheaf of papers.

"A deal to give certainty to business, travelers and all investors in our country from Jan. 1. A deal with our friends and partners in the EU," he said.

Though tariffs and quotas have been avoided, there will be more red tape because as the U.K. is leaving the EU's frictionless single market and customs union. Firms will have to file forms and customs declarations for the first time in years. There will also be different rules on product labeling as well as checks on agricultural products.

Despite those additional costs, many British businesses who export widely across the EU voiced relief that a deal was finally in place as it avoids the potentially cataclysmic imposition of tariffs.

"While the deal is not fully comprehensive, it at least provides a foundation to build on in future," said Laura Cohen, chief executive of the British Ceramic Confederation.

One sector that appears to be disappointed is the fishing industry with both sides voicing their discontent at the new arrangements. Arguments over fishing rights were largely behind the delay in reaching an agreement.

Under the terms of the deal, the EU will give up a quarter of the quota it catches in U.K. waters, far less than the 80% Britain initially demanded. The system will be phased in over 5 1/2 years, after which quotas will be reassessed.

"In the end, it was clear that Boris Johnson wanted an overall trade deal and was willing to sacrifice fishing," said Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organizations.

The French government, which had fought hard for fishing access, announced aid for its fishing industry to help deal with the smaller quota, but insisted that the deal protects French interests.

The president of the French ports of Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer, Jean-Marc Puissesseau, said no matter what is in the Brexit trade deal, life for his port will become more difficult because "there will no longer be free movement of merchandise."

Some 10,000 jobs in the Boulogne area are tied to fishing and its seafood-processing industry, he said, and about 70% of the seafood they use comes from British waters.

"Without fish, there is no business," he told The Associated Press.