PM'S WIFE

UK Opposition Labour Party raises questions over Akshata Murty’s liquidated firm

The 43-year-old Indian businesswoman and daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy had incorporated the venture in 2013 with her husband as one of the directors before he resigned in 2015

PTI London

 Published 06.01.24

Akshata MurtyFile


The UK’s Opposition Labour Party has got into campaigning mode for an expected general election later this year, with advertisements claiming British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is giving the British public a “raw deal” and also raising questions over his wife Akshata Murty’s recently liquidated investment venture Labour’s national campaign coordinator and shadow minister, Pat MacFadden, posted a letter on social media dated January 4 that he wrote to UK Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden questioning the circumstances surrounding Murty’s Catamaran Ventures being wound up.


The 43-year-old Indian businesswoman and daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy had incorporated the venture in 2013 with her husband as one of the directors before he resigned in 2015. It had emerged in a financial statement last year that she had decided to wind down her firm as a going concern.

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“In the past few months, numerous reports about the business dealings of Catamaran Ventures have circulated,” reads MacFadden’s letter on X. “It was revealed that the firm run by the Prime Minister’s wife received GBP 2m through government Covid support schemes devised by Rishi Sunak himself. It then emerged businesses in which Ms Murty had invested went bust, costing taxpayers GBP 1m… Colleagues and I have written numerous correspondence to government ministers and bodies. Alongside the outstanding questions, the decision by Ms Murty to liquidate her company raises several others that I believe need to be clarified in the public interest,” it notes.


The letter goes on to question the impact the closure of Catamaran Ventures could have on government-backed education start-up Study Halls that it had shares in and any other companies it retained a stake in. It also questions the arrangements in place for the payment of tax owed to the HMRC, the UK tax department, and whether Catamaran Ventures would be “fulfilling all its liabilities to the British taxpayer?” A spokesperson for Murty confirmed to the British media that the Catamaran Ventures UK business was wound up by Murty on December 21, 2023. “As a result, a significant donation has been made to ShareGift, an independent UK-registered charity with experience accepting donations in the form of shares. Ms Murty has shortlisted several charities focused on veterans’ affairs and education for the ShareGift team to consider at the time of disbursement,” the spokesperson said.



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The personal finances of Sunak and his wife have previously also been under scrutiny when it was revealed that Murty had legal non-domicile tax status, which meant she did not have to pay UK tax on her Indian income. However, after an Opposition furore over this issue, she had relinquished her non-dom tax status and said she would pay all her tax in the UK to prevent the issue becoming a distraction for her husband's political career.


“My decision to pay UK tax on all my worldwide income will not change the fact that India remains the country of my birth, citizenship, parents’ home and place of domicile. But I love the UK too,” Murty had said in a statement at the time in April 2022.

Japanese safety experts search for voice data as workers clear plane debris from runway collision

Heavy machinery remove the debris of the burned down Japan Airlines plane at Haneda airport in Tokyo Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024. A team of transport safety officials searched for a voice recorder from the severely burned fuselage of the plane, … more >

By Mari Yamaguchi - Associated Press - Saturday, January 6, 2024

Transport safety officials searched for a voice recorder from the severely burned fuselage of a Japan Airlines plane, seeking crucial information on what caused a collision with a small coast guard plane on the runway at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.

On Saturday, heavy machinery worked for a second day to remove debris of the burned Airbus A350 for storage in a hangar to allow the runway to reopen. Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito said officials were aiming to reopen the runway Monday. Wreckage of the Japan Coast Guard plane had been cleared.

Saito said the airport’s traffic control operation would create a new position for monitoring aircraft movement on runways beginning Saturday. There has been speculation traffic controllers might not have paid attention to the coast guard plane’s presence on the runway when they gave the JAL plane permission to land.

Six experts from the Japan Transport Safety Board on Friday walked through the mangled debris of the Airbus A350-900 that was lying on the runway searching for the voice data recorder.

JTSB experts have so far secured both the flight and voice data recorders from the coast guard’s Bombardier Dash-8 and a flight data recorder from the JAL plane to find out what happened in the last few minutes before Tuesday’s fatal collision.

All 379 occupants of JAL Flight 516 safely evacuated within 18 minutes of landing as the aircraft was engulfed in flames. The pilot of the coast guard plane also escaped, but its five other crewmembers died. The coast guard aircraft was on a mission to deliver relief goods to survivors of powerful earthquakes in central Japan that killed at least 100 people.

PHOTOS: Japanese safety experts search for voice data as workers clear plane debris from runway collision

New details have also emerged from media footage at Haneda airport. NHK television reported footage from its monitoring camera set up at the Haneda airport showed that the coast guard plane moved onto the runway and stopped there for about 40 seconds before the collision.

RIP

Glynis Johns, ‘Mary Poppins’ Star, Dies at 100

January 05, 2024
Associated Press

 Actress Glynis Johns is shown, Sept. 11, 1982.

NEW YORK —

Glynis Johns, a Tony Award-winning stage and screen star who played the mother opposite Julie Andrews in the classic movie Mary Poppins and introduced the world to the bittersweet standard-to-be Send in the Clowns by Stephen Sondheim, has died. She was 100.

Mitch Clem, her manager, said she died Thursday at an assisted living home in Los Angeles of natural causes. "Today’s a sad day for Hollywood," Clem said. "She is the last of the last of old Hollywood."

Johns was known to be a perfectionist about her profession — precise, analytical and opinionated. The roles she took had to be multifaceted. Anything less was giving less than her all.

"As far as I’m concerned, I’m not interested in playing the role on only one level," she told The Associated Press in 1990. "The whole point of first-class acting is to make a reality of it. To be real. And I have to make sense of it in my own mind in order to be real."

Johns’ greatest triumph was playing Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, for which she won a Tony in 1973. Sondheim wrote the show’s hit song Send in the Clowns to suit her distinctive husky voice, but she lost the part in the 1977 film version to Elizabeth Taylor.

"I’ve had other songs written for me, but nothing like that," Johns told the AP in 1990. "It’s the greatest gift I’ve ever been given in the theater."

Others who followed Johns in singing Sondheim’s most popular song include Frank Sinatra, Judy Collins, Barbra Streisand, Sarah Vaughan and Olivia Newton-John. It also appeared in season two of Yellowjackets in 2023, sung by Elijah Wood.

Back when it was being conceived, A Little Night Music had gone into rehearsal with some of the book and score unfinished, including a solo song for Johns. Director Hal Prince suggested she and co-star Len Cariou improvise a scene or two to give book writer Hugh Wheeler some ideas.

"Hal said 'Why don’t you just say what you feel,'" she recalled to the AP. "When Len and I did that, Hal got on the phone to Steve Sondheim and said, 'I think you’d better get in a cab and get round here and watch what they’re doing because you are going to get the idea for Glynis’ solo.'"

Johns was the fourth generation of an English theatrical family. Her father, Mervyn Johns, had a long career as a character actor, and her mother was a pianist. She was born in Pretoria, South Africa, because her parents were visiting the area on tour at the time of her birth.

Johns was a dancer at 12 and an actor at 14 in London’s West End. Her breakthrough role was as the amorous mermaid in the title of the 1948 hit comedy Miranda.

"I was quite an athlete, my muscles were strong from dancing, so the tail was just fine; I swam like a porpoise," she told Newsday in 1998. In 1960’s The Sundowners, with Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum, she was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar. (She lost out to Shirley Jones in Elmer Gantry.)

Other highlights include playing the mother in Mary Poppins, the movie that introduced Julie Andrews and where she sang the rousing tune Sister Suffragette. She also starred in the 1989 Broadway revival of The Circle, W. Somerset Maugham’s romantic comedy about love, marriage and fidelity, opposite Rex Harrison and Stewart Granger.

"I’ve retired many times. My personal life has come before my work. The theater is just part of my life. It probably uses my highest sense of intelligence, so therefore I have to come back to it, to realize that I’ve got the talent. I’m not as good doing anything else," she told the AP.

To prepare for A Coffin in Egypt, Horton Foote’s 1998 play about a grand dame reminiscing about her life on and off a ranch on the Texas prairie, she asked the Texas-born Foote to record a short tape of himself reading some lines and used it as her coach.

In a 1991 revival of A Little Night Music in Los Angeles, she played Madame Armfeldt, the mother of Desiree, the part she had created. In 1963, she starred in her own TV sitcom, Glynis.

Johns lived all around the world and had four husbands. The first was the father of her only child, the late Gareth Forwood, an actor who died in 2007.

RIP

Flying Tiger and pioneer SIA pilot Ho Weng Toh dies, aged 103

From B25 Mitchell bombers to Boeing 737 passenger jets, Captain Ho's flying career spanned four decades. 

LIANHE ZAOBAO FILE PHOTO

Wallace Woon

SINGAPORE - One of the last surviving members of a group of World War II pilots dubbed the Flying Tigers, Captain Ho Weng Toh, died in the morning of Jan 6. He was 103.

Known affectionately as Winkie, Captain Ho’s death was announced in a Facebook post by his nephew John Ho.

Mr Ho said on Facebook: “My dearest uncle Winkie passed away this morning. He was a grand 103 years old. He lived a life many of us would dream of... A precious generation who had a much tougher and unpredictable life, who sacrificed so much so that my generation could live a peaceful and much easier life.

“To him, and the rest of that generation, I say thank you. ”

Born in Ipoh in 1920, Captain Ho attended university in Hong Kong when the Japanese invaded China in 1941.

He then signed up as trainee pilot with the Chinese-American Composite Wing, dubbed the Flying Tigers, and joined other Chinese and American pilots in Arizona where he received his flying training.

As a B-25 Mitchell bomber pilot, Captain Ho flew missions over occupied China during World War II and returned a hero in Ipoh.

In 1949, he married Augusta Rodrigues, who died in 1977 of lung cancer.

He then joined the now-defunct Malayan Airlines in 1951, and was then a founding pilot of the Singapore Airlines.

He retired three decades later as chief pilot of SIA’s Boeing 737 fleet.

Captain Ho Weng Toh, known affectionately as Winkie, was a chief pilot at SIA when he retired in 1980. LIANHE ZAOBAO FILE PHOTO

In 2019, Captain Ho published his autobiography, Memoirs Of A Flying Tiger, detailing his experiences.

Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean paid tribute to Captain Ho in a Facebook post on Jan 6.

He said : “Our long-time Pasir Ris resident, Captain Ho Weng Toh, 103, one of the last surviving Flying Tigers who flew bombers in World War II, passed on peacefully this morning. He was also one of our first Singapore Airlines pilots.

“May he rest in peace.”

THE FLYING TIGERS WIKIPEDIA

REST IN POWER

Arno J. Mayer, Unorthodox Historian of Europe’s Crises, Dies at 97

A Jewish refugee from the Nazis, he argued that World War I, World War II and the Holocaust were all part of a “second Thirty Years’ War.”

The historian Arno J. Mayer in 2013. He argued that both world wars and the Holocaust were the result of modern, liberal capitalism colliding with an entrenched European elite.

Credit...Olli Eickholt

By Clay Risen
Jan. 6, 2024


Arno J. Mayer, a historian whose unorthodox reading of the first half of the 20th century challenged conventional understandings of World War I, World War II and the Holocaust, died on Dec. 17 in a senior care facility in Princeton, N.J. He was 97.

His son Daniel confirmed the death.

Dr. Mayer, who was born in Luxembourg, fled to America with his Jewish family just ahead of the Nazi invasion in 1940. He was one of the last survivors of a generation of émigré historians, many of them also Jews — among them Raul Hilberg, Peter Gay and Fritz Stern — who tried to make sense of the cataclysm they and the world had just experienced.

He was by training a historian of diplomacy, though he ranged far beyond his original field. His early scholarship focused on the origins of World War I, while his later writing reached both forward to the Holocaust and the founding of Israel and back as early as the French Revolution.

Yet a common idea threaded through his long career, which included seven books and teaching positions at Brandeis, Harvard and Princeton: that the period from 1914 to 1945 constituted a “second Thirty Years’ War,” as calamitous and widespread as the one that ravaged Europe in the 17th century.


Dr. Mayer considered himself a Marxist, and though he was far from doctrinaire, he took from Marx the notion that society must be conceived as a whole, and that history is the result of tensions among its constituent parts, like class and social structures.

From this vantage point, he argued that the three-decade crisis was the result of modern, bourgeois-liberal capitalism coming into conflict with the still-entrenched aristocratic elites of Europe — what he called “The Persistence of the Old Regime,” the title of a book he published in 1981.

Through scrupulous research in archives in Britain, France and Germany — he was fluent in the languages of all three — he showed that World War I was the result not of diplomatic failures but of “pre-emptive counterrevolutions” in each country, meant to stave off mass unrest at home by turning public energies abroad.

The peace negotiations and agreements that ended the war, he went on, were in large part a continuation of the conflict between the old and new orders by other means — and their resulting incoherency meant that another, even greater, conflagration would follow.

But unlike some Marxist historians, Dr. Mayer rejected deterministic thinking; in his view, nothing was inevitable and everything was contingent.

That principle undergirded his most controversial work, “Why Did the Heavens Not Darken?: The ‘Final Solution’ in History” (1988).

Dr. Mayer’s book “Why Did the Heavens Not Darken?” (1988) made the controversial argument that antisemitism was only one of many reasons for the Nazis’ rise to power.


Dr. Mayer argued that while antisemitism was rife within German society, it was only one of many reasons for the Nazis’ rise to power and subsequent invasion of the Soviet Union. Just as important was the specter of Soviet Communism, which drove the old German elite to support Hitler in the first place.

“If Hitler’s worldview had an epicenter,” he wrote, “it was his deep-seated animosity toward contemporary civilization, and not his hatred for Jews, which was grafted onto it.”

While the Nazis had imprisoned and murdered countless Jews already, Dr. Mayer argued that it was only when the invasion of the Soviet Union faltered, in late 1941, that Hitler and his circle decided on a systematic plan of extermination, which Dr. Mayer called the Judeocide.

While several prominent historians supported Dr. Mayer’s thesis — the Polish Jewish historian Nechama Tec called the book “a welcome addition to the existing literature” — many others denounced it vehemently. In a lengthy review in The New Republic, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, then a graduate student at Harvard, called it “a mockery of memory and history.”

The Anti-Defamation League went further, adding Dr. Mayer to its list of “Hitler’s Apologists” in a 1993 report, accusing him of writing “historical scholarship which relativizes the genocide of the Jews.”

And indeed, several prominent Holocaust deniers took quotations out of the book to support their arguments, though in every case they were out of context and grossly misrepresented Dr. Mayer’s point.

But Dr. Mayer persisted, arguing that his opponents had created a “cult of memory” around the Holocaust that resisted, and even punished, any attempt to explain it as a historical event.

“After 50 years the question is no longer whether or not to reappraise and historicize the Judeocide,” he wrote in the preface to the book, “but rather how to do so responsibly.”

Arno Joseph Mayer was born on June 19, 1926, in Luxembourg City, the son of Frank and Ida (Liebin) Mayer. His father was a wholesaler.

The Germans invaded Luxembourg on May 10, 1940, and within hours the Mayer family — Arno, his parents, his paternal grandfather and his sister, Ruth — were fleeing south through France in their two-door Chevrolet.

Arno’s maternal grandparents stayed behind, and were eventually sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in the present-day Czech Republic. His grandfather died there; his grandmother survived.

The family tried to cross into Spain but were turned away. They then boarded a ship to Algeria and eventually reached Casablanca, Morocco, where they secured exit papers to the United States.

The Mayers settled in New York City. In 1944, when Arno turned 18, he enlisted in the Army and was sent to Fort Knox to train as a member of a tank crew.

Just before his unit was to leave for combat in Europe, he was reassigned to a facility in Maryland, Camp Ritchie, where high-value German prisoners of war were being held. He was assigned to be a sort of morale officer, attached to the rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, whom the United States hoped would work for the military after the war.

“I was officially initiated into the ironies of the Cold War when I was given strict orders not to dispute any of their justifications for having served Hitler,” he wrote in “Why Did the Heavens Not Darken?”

He studied business at the City College of New York and graduated in 1949. But a gnawing desire to understand the war he had just been through, and the Holocaust he had barely survived, pushed him toward graduate study at Yale, where he received a doctorate in political science in 1953.

He joined the Brandeis faculty a year later. He taught there and at Harvard before moving to Princeton in 1961. He took emeritus status in 1993.

He married Nancy Grant in 1955. They divorced in 1965. Along with his son Daniel, he is survived by another son, Carl; his sister, Ruth Burger; and five grandchildren.

Dr. Mayer’s father was an ardent left-wing Zionist, as was Dr. Mayer early in his career. He worked on a Communist kibbutz in Israel in the early 1950s and befriended the philosopher Martin Buber.

But in time he grew deeply critical of the Israeli state, believing that it had betrayed the vision of its founders in favor of a militarized, segregated society beholden to nationalists and ultrareligious forces — an argument he unpacked in 2008 in his book “Plowshares Into Swords: From Zionism to Israel.”

Once more he drew criticism for his views. And once again he stood fast, declaring that his antipathy toward what Israel had become was of a piece with his worldview as the child of a small, landlocked country forced to flee by war among greater powers. He was, he insisted, “singularly immune to the allure of all nationalisms.”


Clay Risen is an obituaries reporter for The Times. Previously, he was a senior editor on the Politics desk and a deputy op-ed editor on the Opinion desk. He is the author, most recently, of “American Rye: A Guide to the Nation’s Original Spirit.” More about Clay Risen

For Russia to Be Sovereign, Moscow Must Restore Soviet Banking System, Katasonov Says

For Russia to Be Sovereign, Moscow Must Restore Soviet Banking System, Katasonov Says

            Staunton, Jan. 6 – Many are unhappy with the current banking system in Russia, and there have been proposals for an Orthodox Christian approach and some steps taken to introduce Islamic banking, both of which have focused on doing away with the current focus of Russian banks on interest and profit.

            But if Russia is to be fully sovereign, it must do more than that: it was break the ties which link Russian banks with those abroad and ensure that they promote Russian national interests rather than the profit of their owners, according to Valentin Katasonov (svpressa.ru/economy/article/400551/).

            And the best way to do that, the Russian nationalist commentator says, is not to engage in cosmetic changes like those of Orthodox or Islamic banking but to replace the current system with the one that was in pace in the Soviet Union from 1930-32 until 1987, one that gave the state a monopoly on banking activity.

            The Soviet system centralized banking management with all short-term lending resources concentrated in the State Bank of the USSR and longer term lending functions divided among a dozen state banks with specialized responsibilities in industry, energy, transport, agriculture and communal services.

            In addition, the Soviet banking system introduced and maintained a monopoly on currency operations, something that was overseen by the Bank for Foreign Trade. That meant, Katasonov says, that the banks served the country rather than the selfish interests of particular banks and their owners.

            As a result of this system, he continues, “we industrialized in the 1930s, prepared the country for war and then won it, restored the national economy, successful resisted the West during the Cold War, created atomic and hydrogen bombs, explored space, and helped dozens of countries in their fight against imperialism.”

            Exactly the same system is needed today, Katasonov argues. It appears unlikely that the Kremlin is prepared to go that far at least in the near term. But the commentator’s argument undoubtedly reflects the thinking of many in Moscow and may very well be a harbinger of things to come in part if not for some time in whole.

Saturday, January 6, 2024

Plastic Chemicals Causing Infertility, Diabetes Found ‘Widespread’ in Common Food Items: Report

By Naveen Athrappully
January 6, 2024

US News

Various bottles of soda are displayed in a cooler at Marina Supermarket in San Francisco, Calif., on July 22, 2014. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Many of the foods consumed by Americans are contaminated with harmful plastic chemicals that contribute to health complications like diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, and infertility, said a recent report by the nonprofit group Consumer Reports (CR).

CR tested 85 food items from 11 categories—beverages, canned beans, condiments, dairy, fast food, grains, infant food, meat and poultry, packaged fruits and vegetables, prepared meals, and seafood, according to the Jan. 4 report. Researchers examined the presence of plasticizers—a chemical used to boost the durability of plastics. The group analyzed two to three samples from each food item, looking for two types of common plasticizers—bisphenols and phthalates—as well as some of their substitutes.

They found that these chemicals remained “widespread” in our food products despite “growing evidence” of health risks. CR discovered that 79 percent of tested samples had bisphenols while 84 out of 85 items had phthalates.

Exposure to such plasticizers can cause severe health issues, like for example in children, bisphenol A (BPA) exposure can negatively affect the brain and prostate glands as well as their behavior. BPA has also been linked with type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and high blood pressure.

Phthalates have been associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, lower sperm motility and concentration, early puberty in girls, and cancer.

Both bisphenols and phthalates have been shown to be endocrine disruptors, meaning they can interfere with the generation and regulation of hormones. Disruptions to hormone levels can lead to cardiovascular disease, infertility, diabetes, and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Exposure to these chemicals can come from the environment, food, and packaging, right from dust in the house to the printed receipt from a grocery store.

CR found that the levels of BPA and other bisphenols were “notably lower” compared to when the group last tested for BPA in 2009. This suggested that “we are at least moving in the right direction on bisphenols,” said James E. Rogers, who oversees product safety testing at the organization.

However, there wasn’t “any good news” on phthalates. Not only were they present in almost all foods, but their levels were also “much higher” compared to bisphenols.

Some of the top food items with the highest level of phthalate contamination as discovered by CR’s tests are as follows:Beverages: Brisk Iced Tea Lemon, Coca-Cola Original, Lipton Diet Green Tea Citrus, and Poland Spring 100 percent natural spring water.
Canned Beans: Hormel Chili with Beans, Bush’s Chili Red Beans Mild Chili Sauce, and Great Value (Walmart) Baked Beans Original.
Condiments: Mrs. Butterworth’s Syrup Original and Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup.
Dairy: Fairlife Core Power High Protein Milk Shake Chocolate, SlimFast High Protein Meal Replacement Shake Creamy Chocolate, Yoplait Original Low Fat Yogurt, and Tuscan Dairy Farms Whole Milk.
Fast Food: Wendy’s Crispy Chicken Nuggets, Moe’s Southwest Grill Chicken Burrito, Chipotle Chicken Burrito, Burger King Whopper With Cheese, Burger King Chicken Nuggets, and Wendy’s Dave’s Single With Cheese.
Grains: General Mills Cheerios Original and Success 10 Minute Boil-in-Bag White Rice.
Infant Food: Gerber Mealtime for Baby Harvest Turkey Dinner, Similac Advance Infant Milk-Based Powder Formula, Beech-Nut Fruities Pouch Pear, Banana & Raspberries, and Gerber Cereal for Baby Rice.
Meat and Poultry: Perdue Ground Chicken Breast, Trader Joe’s Ground Pork 80% Lean 20% Fat, Premio Foods Sweet Italian Sausage, and Libby’s Corned Beef.
Packaged Fruits and Vegetables: Del Monte Sliced Peaches in 100% Fruit Juice, Green Giant Cream Style Sweet Corn, and Del Monte Fresh Cut Italian Green Beans.
Prepared Meals: Annie’s Organic Cheesy Ravioli, Chef Boyardee Beefaroni Pasta in Tomato and Meat Sauce, Banquet Chicken Pot Pie, Campbell’s Chunky Classic Chicken Noodle Soup, and Chef Boyardee Big Bowl Beefaroni Pasta in Meat Sauce.
Seafood: Chicken of the Sea Pink Salmon in Water Skinless Boneless, King Oscar Wild Caught Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and Snow’s Chopped Clams.

Some of these foods had far higher levels of phthalates compared to others.


For instance, Annie’s Organic Cheesy Ravioli had 53,579 nanograms of phthalates per serving, which is more than double what was found in Chicken of the Sea Pink Salmon in Water Skinless Boneless, Moe’s Southwest Grill Chicken Burrito, Burger King Whopper With Cheese, and Fairlife Core Power High Protein Milk Shake Chocolate.
Dangerous Chemicals, Autism

CR pointed out that regulators from the European Union and the United States have set a threshold for BPA and some of the phthalates. None of the 85 food items exceeded these limits. However, this doesn’t mean that the tested foods are safe for consumption.

“Many of these thresholds do not reflect the most current scientific knowledge, and may not protect against all the potential health effects,” said Tunde Akinleye, the CR scientist who oversaw the tests. “We don’t feel comfortable saying these levels are okay. … They’re not.”

For instance, some studies have associated high blood pressure, insulin resistance, and reproductive issues with phthalates even when the level of the plasticizer was below the thresholds set by European and American authorities, CR noted.

Because people can be exposed in a wide range of ways, it can be difficult to quantify a safe limit for the chemicals in any single food.

“The more we learn about these chemicals, including how widespread they are, the more it seems clear that they can harm us even at very low levels,” said Mr. Akinleye.

A study published in September found that BPA was directly linked to two key disorders during childhood—autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In children with these conditions, the body’s ability to detoxify BPA was found to be reduced.

Bisphenol-S (BPS), a BPA substitute, was found to potentially increase the risk of cardiovascular disease according to a 2022 study. “Although BPA, BPS, and BPF share similar chemical properties, BPS and BPF are not safe alternatives for BPA,” it warned.

A study published at the National Library of Medicine in June 2022 found that phthalates in high concentrations in certain medications could raise the risk of childhood cancer.

Overall, childhood phthalate exposure was associated with a 20 percent higher risk of childhood cancer. The risk of developing lymphoma or blood cancer doubled while the risk of developing osteosarcoma, a bone cancer, rose by almost three times.

 KAZAKHSTAN

Kazakhs Commemorate Relatives Killed In Crackdown On Protests

January 06, 2024 

By RFE/RL's Kazakh Service

Nurgul Tapaeva

Sanat Nurbekov

Small rallies took place in Kazakhstan on January 5 to mark the second anniversary of anti-government protests, some of which spiraled into riots and ended with many demonstrators being shot by security forces. At least 238 people were killed in the 2022 events known as Bloody January. In the country's biggest city, Almaty, activists and relatives of victims brought portraits of the dead, recited prayers, and demanded punishment for those who killed their loved ones. There were no official commemorations.

Taliban detention campaign sparks fear among women, girls

• By Amu TV

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The Taliban’s recent detentions in Kabul and Ghazni have heightened fear and anxiety among women and girls, as described by a number of residents.

In Kabul, many women and girls report that the Taliban Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has escalated detentions for noncompliance with dress codes, particularly in the city’s western parts.

The ministry has directed schools to detain girls not wearing hijabs, resulting in two- to three-day confinements.

Some Kabul residents said they now leave their homes in fear, anxious about the increasing detentions.

“Education, learning, mobility, and clothing are our fundamental rights; the Taliban cannot arbitrarily strip these from us,” Husna, a student advocate, said.

Shabnam, a Kabul resident, condemned the Taliban’s focus on women, stating, “Their crimes and violence against women, masked as honor and religion, are unacceptable.”

Sources told Amu that the Taliban’s vice and virtue ministry has also informed education centers in Kabul about their dress code, urging them to observe hijab–a head-to-toe cover–or else they would be detained and would be kept in custody for three days.

Women’s rights activists criticized these actions as contrary to human rights standards.

“The Taliban have sparked terror, detaining unveiled women in public, blatantly violating privacy and lacking any justification except to spread fear,” Muzhgan Feraji, an activist, said.

Rahil Talash, another activist, described the detentions as unethical efforts to make women more vulnerable and restrict freedom.

“The Taliban’s apprehension of women and girls is a deliberate tactic to instill fear, making women more vulnerable and restricting their mobility,” Talash said.

Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban’s acting minister for vice and virtue, in a public speech last week advised investors against importing “tight and thin” clothing, indicating further personal restrictions.

Former government employees turn to manual labor in Kabul

• By Amu TV
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Amid Afghanistan’s deepening economic crisis, many former government employees in Kabul are turning to daily wage labor, struggling with poverty and a lack of employment opportunities.

The onset of winter has further limited job prospects, leaving many waiting for days to find work.

Noor Agha, 48, a former employee of the Independent Election Commission, now relies on physical labor for income. “In the last fifteen days, I’ve earned only 50 Afghanis (about $0.71). I have no other means of income,” Agha said, highlighting the challenges faced by many to support their families.

Other workers echoed similar concerns about the scarcity of jobs and rising poverty. “Previously, a laborer could earn four hundred Afghanis per day, but now work is scarce, and people work for just two hundred Afghanis,” said Fareed, another laborer.

In addition to employment woes, Kabul residents, especially those engaged in roadside work, are grappling with high food prices, despite the Afghan currency’s gains against the dollar.

“Winter is cold, our children and we are sick. The people’s economy is weak,” shared Mohammad Jan, a laborer.

The United Nations Development Programme reports that 85 percent of Afghanistan’s population lives below the poverty line.

The World Bank’s 2023 annual report further notes that 15 million Afghans face severe food insecurity, a situation exacerbated by ongoing economic difficulties.

Tamil Families of the Disappeared demand release of Tamil mother arrested during Ranil's North-East visit

 SRI LANKA

Tamil Families of the Disappeared demand release of Tamil mother arrested during Ranil's North-East visit

 06 January 2024

Leaders of the Tamil Families of the Disappeared group (FOD), have called on the Sri Lankan state to immediately release the leader of Vavuniya's FOD, Jenitta. They vehemently condemned the arbitrary arrest and detention of the aggrieved Tamil woman, who attempted to speak on behalf of the FOD with Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe during his visit to Vavuniya earlier this week.

Mullaitivu FOD

At a press meeting in Mullativu, Suresh Eeshwari (pictured above), made the following statements:

"Those who were arrested during the protest ahead of President Ranil's visit to the North-East were physically attacked. Is it wrong for Jenitta to have demanded the whereabouts of her husband? Clearly President Ranil was visiting the North-East, ahead of the 2024 Presidential election, to speak with the Tamils. It is the aggrieved groups, such as ours (the FOD), whom he needed to have consulted with to ensure meaningful justice and accountability. Jenitta has been relentlessly seeking answers about her husband's whereabouts from the state since the past 16 years, whilst single-handedly raising her children. In her quest for justice, the Sri Lankan state has detained her multiple times".

She spoke of the constant initmidation of the authorities against members of the FOD. "The Sri Lankan police are intentionally suppressing our peaceful protests and efforts for justice," said Eeshwari. "The police in the Mullaitivu district come searching for me at my house at 9:45 PM and are questioning whether we (Mullaitivu FOD) are involved in drug-dealing when searching for us in this manner."

"The police have no rights to prevent us from seeking justice. The police are subjecting our (FOD) women to sexual harassment and physical abuse as intimidation tactics during times of interrogation. To subject aggrieved mothers to such treatment is horrible. The police have to stop this immediately and release Jenitta. Otherwise, we will initate protests against the police!," she stressed. 

Jaffna FOD

Head of the Jaffna FOD, Ilankothai (pictured above) stressed that the FOD "have not requested the (Sri Lankan) government for compensation or anything, but to disclose the whereabouts of our children". "The government has to take immediate action to release the head of Vavinya's Tamil Families of the Disappeared group," urged Ilankothai.

Expressing concern over the said incident, she criticised the double standards exhibited by the Sri Lankan police. She highlighted the authorities' tolerance of public death threats made by extremist Sinhalese Buddhists against Tamils on the island, while simultaneously repressing and intimidating members of Tamil FOD. 

"This only shows that the state is dangerously authoritarian," remarked Ilankothai, emphasising the infringement on democratic rights. She questioned the fairness of the Sri Lankan authorities, accusing them of routinely arresting and intimidating those seeking answers about the disappeared children. Ilankothai urged the government to address these discrepancies and ensure the protection of Tamils exercising their democratic rights.

Mannar FOD

Head of the Mannar FOD, Manuel Uthayachandra (pictured above), also condemned "the violent and arbitrary arrest" of Jenitta, criticising the President's failure to visit or listen to members of the FOD during his visit to Vavuniya. 

Tamil FODs have been protesting for over 2,000 days calling on the state to reveal the whereabouts of their loved ones, who were forcibly disappeared by the state over 14 years ago, and urging international intervention in ensuring accountability for past and ongoing state crimes against the Tamils in the North-East. Jenitta's arrest has further raised concerns about the state's commitment to addressing the grievances of the Tamils, contrary to the supposed representative 'Himalaya Declaration'. 

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