Opening for Chinese and other electric vehicle makers due to shortage of electric vans

By Dimsumdaily Hong Kong

Thu April 13, 2023

Maxus

13th April 2023 – (London) Legacy automakers have struggled to keep pace with the growing demand for electric commercial vehicles (ECVs), allowing newer brands such as Maxus to gain a foothold in the market. Maxus, a brand under China’s SAIC Motor Corp, has been particularly successful in Europe, where it sold 18,000 mostly electric vehicles last year, including buses and pickup trucks. In 2022, Maxus held around 6% of Europe’s new ECV market, selling nearly 5,000 ECVs, more than Ford, Nissan or Fiat. Fleet customers complain they cannot obtain enough ECVs from established automakers such as Ford, Peugeot, Renault, and Mercedes, leading them to seek alternatives.

Last-mile delivery startup Packfleet, which uses only ECVs to deliver packages in London, saw a tenfold growth in 2022, with most of its 53-vehicle fleet made up of Maxus vans. Other brands looking to gain market share include Geely’s Farizon, B-ON’s StreetScooter, and General Motors’ BrightDrop.

According to experts, legacy automakers’ slow embrace of electric vehicles and supply chain challenges have hampered their efforts to electrify entire model lineups. As fleets shift towards zero-emission vehicles, newer brands like Maxus have an advantage. However, the electric van market faces supply chain challenges, with component shortages and high raw material costs impacting production.

Asda, the UK supermarket chain, has also opted for Maxus vans, and its Fleet Manager, Sean Clifton, has 50 additional Ford vans and 20 Maxus vans on order, but will need more soon as Asda electrifies its 1,300 delivery vans. While Clifton has expressed interest in electric Mercedes chassis cab vans, which were initially slated for 2022, they will not arrive until 2024.

Legacy automakers have prioritized big-volume passenger models over vans due to tight EV battery material supply. Steven Merkt, head of transportation solutions at major supplier TE Connectivity, believes that legacy automakers’ focus on big-volume passenger models reflects “existential questions” for these companies.

Ford’s U.K. head, Tim Slatter, has acknowledged that the company underestimated demand for its E Transit and is racing to catch up. Ford recently unveiled a new, smaller electric Courier van aimed at winning business customers in Europe.

While some electric startups, such as Arrival or Canoo, have struggled, Maxus, Farizon, and BrightDrop have deep-pocketed backers. BrightDrop CEO Travis Katz said scaling production is “incredibly challenging and expensive,” but the company is on track to hit an annual capacity target of 50,000 vehicles by 2025.

As the world shifts towards zero-emission vehicles, the electric van market is poised for growth. However, supply chain challenges must be overcome before the market can reach its full potential.

Electric vehicles in China: BYD strategies and government subsidies

DOI: 10.1016/j.rai.2016.01.001

Open Access

ABSTRACT

Central and local governments in China are investing heavily in the development of Electric Vehicles. Businesses and governments all over the world are searching for technological innovations that reduce costs and increase usage of “environmentally friendly” vehicles. China became the largest car producer in 2009 and it is strongly investing in the manufacturing of electric vehicles. This paper examines the incentives provided by Chinese governments (national and local) and the strategies pursued by BYD, the largest Chinese EVs manufacturer. Specifically, our paper helps to show how government support in the form of subsidies combined with effective strategies implemented by BYD helps to explain why this emerging industry has expanded successfully in China. Our study is based on primary data, including interviews with company headquarters and Brazilian subsidiary managers, and secondary data.

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Brazil announces new social media curbs over school violence content

Platforms that do not comply may be fined up to $2.4 million and possibly have their sites suspended by federal authorities, says Justice Minister Flavio Dino.

Officials say websites will be ordered to take steps to ban content and users who "are promoting or supporting attacks or violence against schools." (Reuters Archive)

Brazil's government has announced new restrictions on social media, aiming to curb an "epidemic" of violent school attacks one week after a hatchet-wielding assailant killed four children.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's Justice Minister, Flavio Dino, said that on Wednesday websites will be ordered to take steps to ban content and users who "are promoting or supporting attacks or violence against schools."

Social media companies will also be required to send data to police on all users sharing violent content, and block users who have been banned for sharing violent content from creating new profiles.

Platforms that do not comply may be fined up to $2.4 million and possibly have their sites suspended by federal authorities, the minister said.

"If there is no compliance, the process to apply sanctions will go ahead," Dino told a press conference, adding that the new measures are in line with national law.

Last Wednesday four children between four and seven years old were killed in a preschool in Blumenau, a city in southern Santa Catarina state, when a man carrying a hatchet stormed the facility.

The murders shocked the South American country, where two other attacks on schools — neither with fatalities — occurred on Monday and Tuesday.

"There is an emergency situation which has generated an epidemic of attacks, threats of attacks (and) panic among families and in schools," said Dino, who vowed a "close regulation" of social media in order to contain the threats.

'Crisis situation'

In March, Meta Platforms and Alphabet's Google appeared before Brazil's Supreme Court to defend the law, while the government looks to expand regulation over social networks.

Dino said Brazil's consumer secretariat would immediately start determining each company's responsibility in proactively regulating harmful content to students.

In view of the "crisis situation," Dino said the secretariat would ask the platforms to report on adopted measures and protocols.

On social media sites and in groups on messaging services such as WhatsApp, users have speculated about potential new violence expected in Brazil on April 20, the anniversary of a 1999 massacre in the US state of Colorado, where shooters slaughtered 12 fellow students and a teacher in Columbine High School.

According to Brazil's justice minister, federal authorities are recommending state and local police reinforce their patrols in the coming days, given the circulation of posts regarding April 20.

The federal prosecutor's office, meanwhile, asked Twitter on Tuesday to disclose measures the social media giant is taking to reduce content related to inciting violence against schools.
Source: TRTWorld and agencies

RIP

Mary Quant, 'mother of the miniskirt,' dead at 93

Courtney Tenz

One of the 20th century's top fashion designers, Mary Quant has passed away at the age of 93. The trendsetter greatly influenced modern women's style.

How mini-skirts changed the world

It all began at her gran's

A fashion buff in the 1960s, Mary Quant got her first taste of the fashion design life by trimming her grandmother's knee-length skirts. Then she took on the boutique, Bazaar, in London's Chelsea neighborhood, where sold her own tailor-made skirts. These were much shorter than the modest skirts her mother and grandmother had worn — ending at least ten centimeters above the knee. Outrageous!

Short and sweet for the young, modern lady

"I liked my skirts short because I wanted to run and catch the bus for work," Quant once said. The young designer sold not only hip designs in her boutique, she changed the image of the young, modern woman forever with her mini-skirts. But she didn't stop at mini-skirts — always inventing new looks and trying out new materials, like PVC: "Fashion is a very ongoing, renewing thing," she said.

Image: Express/Getty Images

"Swinging Sixties"

The mini skirt became a symbol of London's "Swinging Sixties." Twiggy, the young model with the thin legs, androgynous figure and pixie haircut, wore the short skirts on the catwalks of the world. Members of The Beatles also frequented Quant's boutique to find dresses for their girlfriends; the store was, at that time, on King's Road: the epi-center of "Swinging London."

Image: Getty Images

King’s Road

Mary Quant never wanted to be the sole recipient of the fame her mini-skirt creation flamed. "The King's Road girls invented the mini-skirt. I had already made the skirts short, but the customers always wanted them shorter," she once said. Yet the style was christened mini, after Quant's preference for the car of the same name.

Image: Evening Standard/Getty Images

Mixed messages: adored by the Queen, despised by the pope

When the first young ladies stepped out in public wearing the short skirts, they were issued warnings by stern-faced police officers. Some even had to make sure that such a skirt length was allowed at all. The Vatican condemned the style as lewd, but Queen Elizabeth, seen here in 1965 on her visit to Germany, awarded Mary Quant a medal for her services to the fashion industry the following year.

Image: picture-alliance/dpa/K. Rohwedder

Hyped around the world

The daring idea caught on among designers and the media took a fancy to it. In 1962, "Vogue" showed Quant's designs. By 1964, the mini-skirt had arrived in Germany; a year later, the trend had established itself worldwide. Yet it was not until the end of the 60s that such short skirts also appeared in the collections of renowned French fashion houses such as Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior.

Image: picture-alliance/J. Brooks

Branching out: cosmetics and accessories

The trend didn't end, even as Mary Quant discontinued her fashion line in 1969 to concentrate on a line of accessories, cosmetics and lingerie. She attributed her getting into the make-up business to an interest in designing "a complete look, from head to toe." Although the designer herself retired in 2000, the eponymous label is still around. Her contributions are on display in London's V&A.

Image: DW

Mary Quant, the visionary fashion designer whose colorful miniskirts epitomized Swinging London in the 1960s and influenced youth culture around the world, has died at the age of 93.

The global editor at large for "Vogue," Hamish Bowles, was keen to emphasize Quant's place in fashion history.

"She was the right person with the right sensibility in the right place at the right time. She appeared on the scene at the exact cusp of the '60s," he said.

Not everyone was enamored with the short skirt.

Coco Chanel said the miniskirt was "indecent" while Sophia Loren publicly claimed the short garment "destroyed the feminine mystique."
Bright colors and innovative fabrics

The designer came of age in post-war London, a place where, she said, "most people had returned to their gardens and allotments hoping life would revert to how it was before the hostilities." It shouldn't have come as a surprise, then, that the young designer who employed bright colors and innovative fabrics drew a lot of attention when she first got her start. After all, as she described it, the city was still full of gentlemen in bowler hats carrying umbrellas. "It was into this world that I launched my new ideas about fashion."

And new they were. After opening her boutique, Bazaar, on King's Road in the early 60s, Quant became well-known for her innovative take on femininity, which was young, colorful and above all, modern. Her ideas about what fashionsuited women best may have been influenced by her close proximity in age to most of her customers.

Bazaar, the boutique that started it all

Image: V&A Press Office

With her short bob and knee-high boots, Mary Quant championed the mod aesthetic, one which traded sheer stockings for bloomers and stiff bras for flowy baby doll dresses. The look was both reflective of and incendiary to a period of cultural rebellion that would take over England.

'Shorter, shorter'

A trendsetter throughout the "Swinging Sixties," the designer harnessed the spirit of the times and helped contribute, at least stylistically, to the women's movement as she created a powerful role model for the working woman. By creating both the mini-skirt and tailored trousers, Mary Quant laid out a uniform that helped redefine what women wore, a loud and proud style which proclaims: I'll wear what I like, thank you very much.

"I was making easy, youthful, simple clothes, in which you could move, in which you could run and jump and we would make them the length the customer wanted," said Quant. As a young girl, she said, she used to hem her grandmother's skirts ever higher. But at Bazaar, her customers were the ones driving the trend that eventually had Quant christened the mother of the mini-skirt. "I wore them very short and the customers would say, 'Shorter, shorter.'"

Always a risk-taker, once she'd made a name for herself as a designer, Quant embraced new textiles and fabrics as well as mass production techniques that revolutionized high street and helped make her a household name by making her clothing more accessible to all. "Snobbery has gone out of fashion, and in our shops you will find duchesses jostling with typists to buy the same dresses," she was quoted in Vogue as saying.

The designer behind the iconic mini-skirt turned her eye to accessories in the late 60s, creating clogs and knee-high boots out of PVC, pairing them with shiny rain jackets. By the end of the decade, though, she gave up her work with garments and lent her name to a cosmetics line — a line which still exists today, although the 85-year-old has long since retired.

On display at the V&A

Quant's popularity in England and her influence in the fashion world can still be felt more than 60 years after the designer made her debut.

An exhibition at the V&A Museum in London, which opened almost four years ago to the day, aims to trace the designer's career and her influence on style by displaying objects from throughout Quant's career.

To create the exhibition, the museum put out a call for people to dig through their closets and add the occasional unique piece to the collection; they received more than 800 garments and accessories to choose from. Asked by the curators of the exhibition what she thought of her work at the time, Quant replied, "It was a wonderfully exciting time and despite the frenetic, hard work, we had enormous fun. We didn't necessarily realize that what we were creating was pioneering, we were simply too busy relishing all the opportunities and embracing the results before rushing on to the next challenge!"

This article was updated from a previous article published May 4, 2019.

Whose water is better? You can drink from the tap only in a few countries in the world. In Russia it is not possible


13 апреля 2023

Studies have pointed to a close relationship between the level of social development of the state and the quality of drinking water.

Scientists at Yale University conducted a study of drinking water in the countries of the world and compiled a detailed "water map" of the world based on its results, on which its quality is calculated with an accuracy of one tenth of a point on a 100-point scale. The conclusions turned out to be surprising: the result does not directly depend on the wealth of a particular country, but on the degree of its social development.

The countries of Northern and Western Europe can boast of perfectly purified water from parasites and microbes: Finland, Norway, Austria, Ireland, Iceland, Germany, etc. The water in Italy and Sweden has some disadvantages, but it scored 97 points each

Poor Greece and Israel took a high place. But the rich Japan (91) and America (89) lag behind the poorer ones.

Surprisingly, Russia, which has huge reserves of the purest water, is not much different from Ukraine, and stands slightly below the Baltic states and slightly above Georgia — around 55 points. By the way, no one in Eastern Europe has risen above 65 points.

According to analyst Alexey Yesod, the connection is obvious: "the more socially developed the state is, regardless of its GDP, the better the benefits intended for the majority of residents".

Poland’s president compares Ukraine’s Bucha atrocity to Stalin-era massacre

An elderly man walks among the graves of unidentified people, killed during Russian occupation, who were reburied from a mass grave in the small Ukrainian town of Bucha, near Kyiv, on January 12, 2023. (AFP)

AFP, Warsaw
Published: 13 April ,2023

Poland’s president on Thursday commemorated a Stalin-era massacre by comparing it to the killing of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha, a town that has become synonymous with war crimes allegations against Russia.

Eighty years ago, Nazi troops discovered in Russia’s Katyn forest the bodies of thousands of Polish army officers killed by Soviet secret police in 1940 -- a massacre the Kremlin denied until 1990.

“It is one of the most tragic episodes of our history, casting such a terrible shadow over Polish-Russian relations,” President Andrzej Duda said in Warsaw, after laying a wreath in memory of the victims.

“Today we look on in horror at... all the records and video and photos coming out of Bucha and other places in Russian-occupied Ukraine where people were murdered the same way, in the Katyn manner,” he added.


Prosecutors in Kyiv say Russian forces killed some 1,400 civilians around Bucha, a town near the Ukrainian capital, where the bodies were discovered last year after the withdrawal of Russian troops.

Bucha has since become a symbol of the alleged war crimes carried out by Moscow during its invasion of Ukraine.

“The perpetrators of the crimes carried out by Russians in Ukraine over the past year must be held accountable so that crimes like the Katyn massacre, like the crimes carried out by Russians in Ukraine today, may never happen again,” Duda said.

Poland, a member of NATO and the European Union, has been a staunch Ukraine supporter -- through words and weapons -- since Russia’s invasion last year.

The Katyn massacre is also associated with another Polish tragedy, the 2010 air crash in Smolensk, Russia.

Poland’s president and many senior state officials had been heading to a ceremony to mark the Katyn massacre when their plane crashed, killing its 96 passengers.

The cause of the crash has been the subject of a fierce debate that has divided Poland ever since, with some believing it was deliberate and others rejecting that as a conspiracy theory.

European privacy watchdog creates ChatGPT task force

Reuters
Published: 13 April ,2023

The body that unites Europe’s national privacy watchdogs said on Thursday it had set up a task force on ChatGPT, a potentially important first step toward a common policy on setting privacy rules on artificial intelligence.

The move by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) follows a unilateral move by Italy last month to curb ChatGPT - a stance that Germany’s commissioner for data protection said could be followed in Europe’s biggest economy.

ChatGPT, an AI program that grabbed the public’s attention for its ability to write answers quickly to a wide range of queries, has grown to be the fastest-growing consumer application in history with more than 100 million monthly active users, while raising questions about threats it may pose to safety, privacy and jobs.

Experts, US government and several other European governments have also expressed concern about the rapid growth of adoption of ChatGPT and similar AI products.

“The EDPB members discussed the recent enforcement action undertaken by the Italian data protection authority against OpenAI about the Chat GPT service,” the statement said.

“The EDPB decided to launch a dedicated task force to foster cooperation and to exchange information on possible enforcement actions conducted by data protection authorities.”

A source at one national watchdog who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media said member states hoped to align their policy positions but this would take time.

The source said member states were not seeking to punish or make rules that will affect Microsoft Corp-backed ChatGPT owner OpenAI, but rather to create general policies that “are transparent.”

They said attendees at Thursday’s meeting included policy experts who presented opinions and exchanged ideas, rather than being decision makers.

The EDPB is an independent body that oversees data protection rules in the European Union, and it is composed of national data protection watchdogs.

The organization could not immediately be reached for comment.

The discussion of ChatGPT was added to the body’s agenda following a request from Spain to discuss the matter earlier this week.

Read more:

Explainer: What is Generative AI, the technology behind ChatGPT?

ChatGPT app update more ‘human-like’: Company

AI tool or scammers’ playground? ChatGPT exploited for fraudulent activities: Expert

Swedish retirees demand fairer pensions for women

By AFP
Published April 13, 2023

The protest of The Tantpatrullen against the Swedish pension system is entering its tenth year, in the name of better rights for women. - Copyright AFP Sam Yeh

“Old ladies need more money!” a group of grey-haired women chants in front of Sweden’s parliament, as their recurring protest against the country’s pension system enters its 10th year.

During the warmer months, members of the red-hatted “Tantpatrullen” (The Old Lady Patrol) gather every Thursday on the cobble streets of Stockholm’s Old Town, right across from Sweden’s parliament. They have just begun their 2023 protest season.

In a country that prides itself on being a champion of feminism and gender equality, the association of retired women is calling for an increase in pensions for women, who are penalised by a system that favours people with high salaries who work well into their sixties.

“The pension system is supposedly neutral but men’s and women’s lives are not neutral,” Brit Rundberg, co-founder and at nearly 90 the oldest member of the Tantpatrullen, told AFP.

In Sweden the average gap between men’s and women’s pensions is 28 percent, the largest among the Nordic countries, according to a recent study by the inter-parliamentary Nordic Council.

Women pensioners on average receive 17,000 kronor ($1,650) before tax a month, while men get an average of 24,200, according to the Swedish Pensions Agency.

“Women’s pensions are much lower compared to men’s because women have lower salaries but also because they do a lot more unpaid work and therefore they work more part-time,” said Jenny Andersson, an expert with the feminist umbrella organisation Sveriges Kvinnoorganisationer and author of the Nordic Council study.

The gap has led some banks to advise clients to share childcare, parental leave or even to transfer part of the pension to the lower-earning partner.

– ‘We have to talk about it’ –

The “patrol” first took to the streets to demonstrate in 2014, outraged that the plights of retired women remained a non-issue in the middle of an election campaign.

“We thought ‘No-one is talking about this! We have to talk about it.’ So that’s how we started,” Rundberg said.

In the 1990s, Sweden was in the midst of a shift to more liberal and privatised systems, and wanted to move to a more financially sustainable pensions system in the face of rising living standards.

In 1999, it introduced a new system based in part on lifetime earnings and in part on funds invested in markets.

At the time of retirement, the sum contributed by the employee — plus that invested in the financial markets — is divided by the number of years left to live, based on average life expectancy.

The earlier one retires, the more the amount will be divided and the lower the pension will be.

Women who have had tough, full-time jobs or have taken care of children “need to stay longer in the workforce to get only a decent pension”, said Joel Stade, a pensions expert at the Swedish National Pensioners’ Organisation PRO, which has some 270,000 members.

“This is not right.”

Sweden has one of the highest rates of older people in the workforce. Women retire at an average age of 64.9, almost a year earlier than men (65.8), according to the OECD.

Swedish women are also more likely to work in the public sector, within healthcare, education and childcare — where salaries tend to be lower than in the private sector.

– At risk of poverty –

According to Eurostat, 17.2 percent of women pensioners in Sweden are at risk of poverty, compared to only nine percent of men.

In addition, 43 percent of women receive just the minimum guaranteed pension, which is paid to those who have only a small additional pension or none at all, according to the Nordic Council.

The minimum guaranteed pension amounted to 10,631 kronor per month in 2021.

Andersson believes that Sweden should take inspiration from Nordic neighbours Denmark and Iceland.

These countries pay a higher minimum pension and take less account of the level of salary earned before retirement. As a result the gender gap is lower — eight percent in Denmark and five in Iceland.

But despite criticism and renewed calls for change as inflation has soared, reform in Sweden currently seems a long way off.

The pension working group in the national parliament does not include members of the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD), which was absent from parliament at the time of the 1999 reform.

Now the SD has grown to become the country’s second largest party and without it at the table, prospects of change in the next few years are considered dim.

Kenya opposition to resume anti-government protests

Kenya’s opposition has announced that anti-government protests will resume after the holy month of Ramadan despite an agreement on talks with the ruling party

ByEVELYNE MUSAMBI 

Associated Press
April 13, 2023

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Kenya’s opposition announced Thursday that anti-government protests will resume after the holy month of Ramadan despite an agreement on talks with the ruling party.

Veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga, attending a town hall meeting in the capital, said a resumption date would be announced after Ramadan, which is due to end on Friday.

A rally is scheduled for Sunday at the historic Kamukunji grounds in the capital where the push for multi-party politics was made in the 1990s.

The opposition had previously organized protests twice a week that left four protesters dead and businesses within the capital’s central business district shut down.

During the series of protests, places of worship in Odinga’s stronghold of the Kibera slums and private property belonging to the former president’s family were torched.

The demonstrations were aimed at urging the government to bring down the cost of living and persuading the electoral commission to open to the public the computer servers that handled the 2022 general election — which the opposition has questioned despite the supreme court upholding the result.

President William Ruto, who was declared the victor in those elections, in a state address on April 2 urged the opposition to call off the demonstrations and allow for talks.

Odinga did call off the demonstrations and both sides have since nominated a team of politicians who are to deliberate on issues raised by the opposition.

But the opposition has in recent days accused the government side of not being committed and serious about the talks, questioning the selection of individuals by the ruling party that includes defectors from the opposition.

Odinga now says the protests will continue alongside the talks.

The opposition has been calling for the involvement of other stakeholders, including civil society, in the talks, but the ruling party says it should remain a parliamentary process.

Western diplomatic envoys and civil society groups had called for restraint and dialogue during the series of protests.

Uganda is targeting reproductive rights alongside its ‘anti-gay’ bill

Ugandan legislators are pushing to prohibit LGBTQ people from pursuing major life decisions, like having a relationship — or having children

ASSOCIATED PRESS

BY PRUDENCE NYAMISHANA
5 APRIL 2023
Same-sex relationships have been a crime in Uganda since the colonial era, similar to many countries in Africa. But the country’s new, all-but-approved “anti-gay” law will criminalize LGBTQ identity itself. In tandem, legislators are pushing to prohibit LGBTQ people from pursuing major life decisions, like having a relationship — or having children.

In early March, Ugandan lawmakers approved the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill that brings back life imprisonment for same-sex relationships and imposes a slate of new penalties for related offenses. This extends as far as restricting Ugandans from saying that they’re gay and speaking about LGBTQ topics. It even prohibits land owners from renting or selling to LGBTQ people. The bill also dictates that “aggravated homosexuality,” which includes sexual assault, but also sex with a person under 18 years of age, is punishable by death.

The bill is now waiting for approval from Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has never been shy about his homophobia. During his State of the Nation address on March 16, Museveni called gay people “deviants.” In 2013, when the country’s original anti-gay law passed, local opposition, international outrage and a ruling by the country’s Constitutional Court defanged the policy. But the sentiments behind it appear to be driving legislative action once again.

But this is not the only law in progress that seeks to curtail gay people’s rights in Uganda. Another bill has come to the surface recently that would further cement state power over the private lives of LGBTQ people, as well as those of unmarried women.

Proponents of the Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill, an effort to regulate infertility treatment, say it would protect people seeking these services and healthcare professionals that provide them. But the bill also requires anyone seeking fertility treatment to be married under Ugandan law. As such, it discriminates against all unmarried Ugandans who might want to have children, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.

First proposed in December 2021, the bill had flown under the radar until a former Ministry of Justice attorney, Samantha Mwesigye, called attention to it on Twitter last month.

“That the Ugandan parliament is even considering tabling this is a travesty not only because of the unconstitutionality of the bill but because Uganda is and should be a progressive society,” Mwesigye told me. She also noted that Ugandan women are increasingly deciding to take the parenting journey on their own.

Rose Wakikona, an expert on reproductive health rights at the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development in Kampala, sees links between this bill and the anti-homosexuality bill.

“The purpose of this bill is to pass a law that expressly kicks out sexual and gender minorities from having children,” she said.

In its current form, the assisted reproductive technology bill would heavily constrain the reproductive rights of unmarried women and LGBTQ people who want to have children of their own. Ugandan law does not recognize same-sex marriage.

As the bill acknowledges in the introduction, infertility takes a toll on people who want children. And childlessness, and the decision not to have a child, are both heavily stigmatized in Uganda. It should come as no surprise that those who seek fertility treatment prefer to go on with it privately.

The bill could also threaten people’s privacy — and thereby potentially run afoul of Uganda’s constitution. If the bill were to pass, married couples would be required to present proof of marriage prior to accessing in-vitro fertilization or surrogacy services. They would also be subject to a medical examination “to ascertain that the married couple suffers from infertility or other health challenges” and compelled to prove that they have been having unprotected sex for one year but have failed to conceive a child. The bill does not indicate how, exactly, state officials expect couples to provide such proof.

Healthcare providers who work in this area declined to speak with me about the bill. “This is a very sensitive topic,” said a worker at one fertility clinic. Their silence was not surprising, given increasing threats to the freedom of expression in Uganda.

Both the assisted reproductive technology and the anti-homosexuality bills speak to a broader push among legislators to align Ugandan laws with notions of “morality” rooted in Christianity.

Dr. Sarah Opendi, the country’s health minister who is now a member of parliament, is the bill’s main sponsor. Opendi has a history of promoting policies tied to “family values” and traditional notions of morality and is a co-sponsor of the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill. She also caught the attention of young, progressive Ugandans last year, when she pushed forward a motion to ban Nyege Nyege, an annual electronic music festival that attracts thousands of people from around the country and beyond. Calling for the festival to be canceled, Opendi argued that it “breeds immorality” and “recruits” young people into the LGBT community.

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Fox Odoi-Oywelowo, one of only two parliamentarians who voted against the anti-homosexuality bill, told openDemocracy that support for the bill was “fueled by Christian fundamentalism.” In 2020, openDemocracy reported that U.S.-based Christian right groups, many with close links to the Trump administration, spent at least $50 million on campaigns that sought to undermine the rights of women and LGBTQ people across Africa. The Fellowship Foundation, a group with strong ties to David Bahati, the parliamentarian who wrote Uganda’s original anti-gay law in 2009, gave the Ugandan government $20 million between 2008 and 2018.

Mwesigye also expressed concern that Christian fundamentalists might have had a hand in promoting the assisted reproductive technology bill. “Lawmakers need to stop moralizing legislation,” she said. “There must be a separation of the church and the state, because the state knows that it is bound to protect the constitutional rights of Ugandans. We cannot have members of parliament citing the Bible and the Quran on the floor of parliament.”

It remains to be seen whether the bill will pass the test of constitutionality. Bills of a similar nature have been tabled and passed in the Ugandan parliament but rejected by the Constitutional Court.

If the anti-homosexuality bill should pass, LGBTQ people in Uganda will be barred by law from seeking out some of the most fundamental components of a healthy and fulfilling life. It will become a crime to seek love and speak about your identity. Even finding a place to live can lead to criminal penalties for your landlord. And if Opendi’s bill should pass, an important avenue for having a child will be outlawed too.

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Prudence Nyamishana is a Ugandan writer and podcaster. She has written for Global Voices and Africa Blogging and hosted the first season of the Amnesty in Africa Podcast.@nyapru1

USSA

A hotline to report teachers ratchets up tensions in US schools

Teachers expressed confusion about the program and fears that they would be subject to investigations concerning 'inappropriate lessons'


OLIVIER TOURON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

BY TJ L'HEUREUX
13 APRIL 2023

Teachers in Arizona were put on notice last month with the launch of the Arizona Department of Education’s “Empower Hotline” that encourages parents to report “inappropriate” lessons being taught in public school classrooms. In a state that ranks last in average cost-of-living adjusted teacher salaries in the U.S., where nearly a quarter of teaching jobs are unfilled, Arizona educators already face plenty of challenges. The new hotline is only adding to the pile.

What counts as inappropriate? An official announcement on the Department of Education’s website says that parents should report lessons that focus on “race or ethnicity, rather than individuals and merit, promoting gender ideology, social emotional learning, or inappropriate sexual content.” The hotline closely mimics a project that Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin began in January 2022 and ended about eight months later due to receiving “little or no volume” of serious accusations, according to a Youngkin spokesperson.

The program was a key campaign promise of Arizona’s newly elected superintendent of public instruction, Tom Horne, whose platform focused on promoting right-wing notions of patriotism and attacking critical race theory. It is hard to come by an Arizona educator who would say that the scholarly theory — that race is a social construct used to oppress people of color — is taught in Arizona’s K-12 schools.

Horne insists otherwise and is quick to assert his dedication to studying U.S. history. “If I hadn’t been a lawyer, I would have been a history teacher,” Horne told me in an interview. “I’ve been reading history every day since I was 14.” Horne, who served as the superintendent of public instruction from 2003 to 2011, was the only Republican in Arizona to win a major statewide role last November.

His campaign website could be a case study in 21st century American far-right spin. Offering only dubious citations, the homepage sets up a mock polemic between Horne and his predecessor, Kathy Hoffman, in which he trots out right-wing, fear-mongering narratives about gender, race, slavery and capitalism in America, and of course about Covid-19. He attacks Hoffman for closing Arizona schools during the pandemic, offering social support for LGBTQ+ students and encouraging teachers to assign Nikole Hannah-Jones’ Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project.
‘If they’re teaching about slavery, what are they supposed to say?’

The hotline was billed as a solution to these so-called problems. But Arizona public school teachers — the state employees whose work most directly affects student outcomes — have largely been left out of the discussion. What will the hotline mean for their work in the classroom? Teachers I spoke with expressed confusion about the program and fears that they would be subject to investigations concerning “inappropriate lessons.”

“Teachers are on a daily basis reaching out to us as union officers and asking if it’s okay to teach things in the approved curriculum,” said Kelley Fisher, who has taught kindergarten for 24 years. “If they’re teaching about slavery, what are they supposed to say? What can and can’t they say in their classrooms? They’re scared, and that should not be what happens in a classroom. Teachers should not be afraid to teach students to think for themselves.”

Others worry that the hotline will cause parents to complain to state officials rather than addressing their concerns directly with teachers or administrators, creating a dynamic that could foster distrust and make it harder to resolve conflicts.

“There are already very well established ways for parents to bring concerns directly to teachers, or, if necessary, the school principal or administration,” said Emily Kirkland, a spokesperson for the Arizona Education Association. “The hotline goes around those existing systems entirely and leaves teachers with no due process at all. It’s really poorly thought out.”

Amber Gould, who has taught English for 12 years in the Glendale Union High School District and serves as treasurer for the Arizona Education Association, was among several educators who said they had received no guidance about what to expect from hotline reports or how to respond to investigations. In an interview, Horne confirmed that the department has not issued guidance to teachers.

Horne is primarily concerned about parents who feel they aren’t listened to, not teachers, he told me. “This has been intended to be a way for parents to communicate with us,” he said. He acknowledged concerns about bypassing existing systems, adding that parents with complaints should go to teachers and principals first. “[The hotline] wasn’t intended to do that,” he said. With regard to the process, Horne said he believes that the department would call the principal first, then the teacher, who would be asked to stop teaching whatever had triggered the call. “If they persist, theoretically we would make a discipline referral to the state board,” he said.

For Kelley Fisher, the hotline is an effort that neither helps teachers nor ensures that students are receiving the best instruction possible.

“This hotline was about appeasing the people who got [Horne] elected,” said the veteran kindergarten teacher. “It’s not about transparency in the classroom, it’s not about making sure teachers are doing a good job.”
Attacking standard K-12 teaching techniques

Perhaps most worrisome to educators is Horne’s vilification of social emotional learning, a key method used by teachers to help students learn to communicate, solve problems and act with compassion toward others. With little concrete evidence, Horne has alleged that teachers are using social emotional learning techniques to disguise their teaching of critical race theory, echoing narratives from right-wing organizations like the Center for Renewing America.

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Several teachers expressed confusion about the link between critical race theory and social emotional learning, which they say are completely different. Abby Knight, a kindergarten teacher in the Kyrene School District, said the current discourse has created a deep misunderstanding about what social emotional learning is.

“There is a level of disconnect when you’re not in the classroom and you’re not doing it,” she said. “SEL is made up of really basic concepts that, if you’re not an educator, you don’t realize are crucial to teaching young kids.”

She explained that you need to teach kids how to communicate effectively, problem solve, consider others and understand what constitutes an appropriate behavior for a given circumstance, in order to foster an effective learning environment.

“Learning really doesn’t take place unless there’s a lot of behavioral work that goes into a classroom,” Knight said.
Empowering pranksters while leaving teachers behind

What has the hotline actually achieved since its mid-March launch? It has seen plenty of action but almost no reports of “inappropriate” lessons. Instead, its staff have been bombarded by thousands of prank calls from outside Arizona and about 1,000 calls from within the state, the vast majority of which also came from pranksters. In an email, Arizona Department of Education spokesperson Rick Medina said that as of April 10, the department had received only a handful of calls that warranted investigation.

Horne said there was one serious hotline case he was aware of: “Someone called us about [a teacher] evangelizing in the classroom. We called the principal who said he was aware of it already, so we dropped it.”

Meanwhile, Arizona educators continue to face very real pressures that the hotline isn’t going to fix. The state is facing a critical shortage of teachers — one in five positions is unfilled — and wages haven’t kept pace with economic changes. Nevertheless, state-mandated responsibilities keep rising.

“People are leaving because it’s not feasible mentally or financially,” Knight said.

“It’s about the way teachers are being treated and it’s driving them out of the classroom,” Kelley Fisher said. “There are plenty of people in this state who are certified to be teachers, but they just don’t want to be teachers right now. It’s really sad.”

Amber Gould, who began teaching at the end of Horne’s last stint as the public schools superintendent, said she felt deja vu about his return to office. “I would hope that we’re able to have conversations with [Horne], because at the end of the day I hope that he wants to do what’s best for kids and not necessarily for his political talking points.”

It remains to be seen whether the hotline will fizzle out like in Virginia or lead to actual investigations into teacher conduct.

“I honestly feel like it’s more of a publicity stunt for Superintendent Horne and his office, but when the fight comes, we’re going to be ready,” Gould said. “We know our rights and we know that in the end, we’re going to do what’s best for kids.”

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TJ L'Heureux is a freelance reporter and writer based in Phoenix.@tjlheureux0