AMERIKA

Why is everyone so grumpy about the economy?

Stephen Robinson, Alternet
June 4, 2024 

President Joe Biden (Shutterstock.com)

Americans think the economy sucks and while the Democratic response of “nuh uh!” is technically correct, it’s probably not politically viable. People historically vote based on their wallets, so it’s a serious problem for the incumbent president (that’s Joe Biden) if a majority of Americans wrongly believe we’re in a recession. A recent Harris poll for the Guardian detailed these upside-down sentiments:

55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.

49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.

49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.


A whopping 58 percent of Americans blame the Biden administration for the economic horror show they’ve imagined. These numbers are usually fatal, because as I keep saying, people don’t vote like Vulcans. They’re more like civic-minded Klingons who cast ballots based on how they feel. Democrats have dazzled us with graphs, charts and all sorts of data, but they’re obviously not putting voters in the right mood. During the next press conference about the economy, Biden could try dimming the lights and playing some Barry White. Desperate measures are needed.

This situation is not unique to America. Almost every incumbent leader and their party are in a political free fall. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is doing even worse in the polls than Biden, and Trudeau is young and minty fresh. He has more time than Biden to turn things around, but he’s currently on track for a colossal wipe out from the Conservative Party and what Politico calls its “firebrand populist leader” Pierre Poilievre. (Yeah, that’s not good.) On the upside, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party are also doomed.

Biden still has a fighting chance precisely because economic conditions are better in the US, and his administration is responsible. Nonetheless, there’s still a chance the unhinged psychopath, coup plotter, confirmed rapist and now convicted felon could win. At least he was only an unhinged psychopath when he beat Hillary Clinton. Do we need to pull out more graphs and charts?

Why is everyone so grumpy about the economy?

Aside from avoiding an actual, real-live recession, Biden has capped the price of insulin, forgiven significant amounts of student loan debt, and expanded access to health care. Yet his approval ratings have buckled under the weight of what Kyla Scanlon dubbed a “vibecession.” Fortunately, Scanlon isn’t a political candidate, as voters usually don’t appreciate having their personal experiences dismissed, even when based in fundamental misperceptions. Biden can’t try the “I feel your pain” approach, because unlike Bill Clinton in 1992, he’s the sitting president. Voters want to see more action than empathy.

Consumer confidence is rising, yet why does it seem like most people I talk to complain about rising prices? If you work in publishing and the arts, you’ve probably heard countless people tell you they simply can’t afford to pay for content right now. We don’t call them deadbeats. We just try to tempt them with subscriber discounts.

It’s been noted that Americans are pleading poverty even as Memorial Day travel rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. People apparently drowned their economic woes with increased tourism. Yes, more people get their news today from social media, which amplifies discontent. Also all the influencers seem happier and more successful than you. The lady in the Homeworthy video talks about “sourcing pieces” to decorate her fancy New York apartment, and you’re so broke you can only “buy things” like a chump.

Lower-income Americans are supposedly richer than ever, but they’re also on the front lines of rising food prices and skyrocketing housing costs. Since 2019, housing prices have ballooned 54 percent, which literally hits people where they live. Mortgage rates have stabilized, but are still high enough to prevent people from buying a home. You might consider that a “first world problem” if you’re a tone-deaf jerk, but for many people, the “American dream” is closely associated with homeownership.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) determined that goods and services are technically cheaper than they were in 2019. This is because wages have grown faster than prices. Unfortunately, people rarely make this calculation when complaining about the price of eggs. The sticker shock phenomenon is real. People want prices to visibly decrease, but that will never happen, and if it did, it’s the result of deflation, which is what actually happens during a recession. That’s why rent prices dropped in major cities during the pandemic.

The Post ran an interesting story this week about how housing costs are affecting voters in Nevada. Biden won the state in 2020, but Trump is currently leading in far too many polls. D. Carter, a Black woman, paid $1,525 for rent, cable and wifi for a one-bedroom apartment before her monthly rent was jacked up to $2,100. No, she did not also receive a 40 percent raise.
Unwilling and unable to pay the new rate, Carter, who spoke on the condition that her first name not be used, considered buying but quickly realized that with interest rates hovering around 7 percent, she was priced out. She found a new apartment in a decent part of town after months of searching, but said still pays up to 50 percent of her fluctuating $50,000 to $70,000 income from her banking job for rent.

The economy has improved enough after the pandemic that landlords can charge substantially more in rent. That might make sense to people priced out of their homes and neighborhoods, but it doesn’t make them feel jolly. According to the Nevada chapter of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the Las Vegas metro area is short on housing for about 312,000 people. Construction of affordable housing is a nationwide problem — a combination of those high interest rates plus well-meaning building requirements in many progressive cities like Portland, Oregon

Catherine Ayres, a 73-year-old with a fixed monthly income of $1,451, has struggled with housing for decades, but during the past four years, she’s shared a studio apartment with two other people.

Minority renters also suffered more during covid because their landlords were more likely to evict them or charge onerous fees if they fell behind in their payments. Landlords in predominately white neighborhoods were more forgiving and even decreased rents. An eviction in your rental history makes it extremely hard to find housing even when your finances improve.

Perception is political reality

What’s interesting is that Biden and many mainstream Democrats do recognize that perception is political reality, at least when it comes to crime. The White House performed the “I Told You So” dance when Portland’s progressive District Attorney Mike Schmidt decisively lost re-election to “tough-on-crime” prosecutor Nathan Vasquez.

“I am committed to ending the open-air drug use, to ending the open-air drug dealing that we have suffered from as a community,” Vasquez said on election night. “I am also committed to restoring that idea that it is OK to hold people accountable and do it in a compassionate manner.”

Technically, Portland experienced a significant drop in homicides and shootings last year, but that reality didn’t save Schmidt. A Biden official said, “Particularly right now, Americans don’t want to feel like things are out of control. Well-meaning ideas have gone too far, and we need a sensible approach.” That approach involves cracking down on immigration and increasing spending for law enforcement.

An anti-crime message in 2022 helped Republicans flip several House seats in New York and possibly ensured their narrow majority. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has since promoted a “tough-on-crime” agenda, dismissing bail reform and even sending the National Guard into the New York subway system. Homeless encampments in major cities don’t sell Americans on a booming economy either. It looks like a Steinbeck novel.

Democrats nationwide have embraced Republican rhetoric about the border rather than pointing out that there is no “border invasion.” Democrats clearly prioritize feelings more than facts regarding these issues. Perhaps the economy is different because the Biden White House fundamentally believes it’s doing the right thing, regardless of voter “vibes.” But “vibes” don’t care about political agendas.

Economist Alex Williams has a good argument about what’s likely fueling economic discontent:

“The economy sucks because, where workers gained leverage, their employers tended to push the cost of that leverage onto customers, which intensified a vicious cycle of service workers and customers getting mad at each other” is my most compact explanation of any “bad vibes.”

Biden and Democrats could acknowledge that the economy is a problem and just blame Republicans for it. It’s literally the approach they’ve taken to crime and the border, but so many liberals are opposed to any economic message that’s not Ricky Martin’s "Living La Vida Loca" at high volume.

“Trump got us in the mess. We’re making it better. Trump and his goons will make it far worse” is both simple and true.

India heatwave hits wildlife as thirsty monkeys drown in well

Agence France-Presse
June 4, 2024

Swaths of northern India are gripped by a heatwave, hitting humans as well as wildife including monkeys. Here, monkeys sit on a roadside in India's capital New Delhi in 2023 (Arun SANKAR/AFP)

Dozens of monkeys in heatwave-hit India desperate for water have drowned in a well, a forest official said Tuesday, in a state where lakes have turned to dust

Swaths of northern India have been gripped by a heatwave since last month, with temperatures soaring over 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

Last week, an Indian court urged the government to declare a national emergency over the ongoing heatwave, saying that hundreds of people had died during weeks of extreme weather.

The heat is also hitting wildlife, with animals searching for water in villages.

Nearly 40 monkeys drowned in the well in Palamu district of eastern Jharkhand state, where lakes have dried out in the heat, villagers said.

Kumar Ashish, the local government forest officer, said the troop had jumped in but could not escape.

"A team of forest officials are investigating," Ashish told AFP, adding that they were awaiting post-mortem results.

India is no stranger to searing summer temperatures but years of scientific research have found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.

Researchers say human-induced climate change has driven the devastating heat impact in India and should be taken as a warning.

Tonga’s volcanic eruption could cause unusual weather for the rest of the decade

The Conversation
June 3, 2024 

Hunga Tonga Volcano Eruptions (NASA Worldview)

Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (Hunga Tonga for short) erupted on January 15 2022 in the Pacific Kingdom of Tonga. It created a tsunami which triggered warnings across the entire Pacific basin, and sent sound waves around the globe multiple times.

A new study published in the Journal of Climate explores the climate impacts of this eruption.

Our findings show the volcano can explain last year’s extraordinarily large ozone hole, as well as the much wetter than expected summer of 2024.

The eruption could have lingering effects on our winter weather for years to come.
A cooling smoke cloud

Usually, the smoke of a volcano – and in particular the sulphur dioxide contained inside the smoke cloud – ultimately leads to a cooling of Earth’s surface for a short period.

This is because the sulphur dioxide transforms into sulphate aerosols, which send sunlight back into space before it reaches the surface. This shading effect means the surface cools down for a while, until the sulphate falls back down to the surface or gets rained out.

This is not what happened for Hunga Tonga.

Because it was an underwater volcano, Hunga Tonga produced little smoke, but a lot of water vapour: 100–150 million tonnes, or the equivalent of 60,000 Olympic swimming pools. The enormous heat of the eruption transformed huge amounts of sea water into steam, which then shot high into the atmosphere with the force of the eruption.



Animation of the Hunga Tonga eruption recorded on January 15 2022 by Japan’s Himawari-8 weather satellite. The plume is just under 500km across.

Japan Meteorological Agency, CC BY

All that water ended up in the stratosphere: a layer of the atmosphere between about 15 and 40 kilometres above the surface, which produces neither clouds nor rain because it is too dry.

Water vapour in the stratosphere has two main effects. One, it helps in the chemical reactions which destroy the ozone layer, and two, it is a very potent greenhouse gas.

There is no precedent in our observations of volcanic eruptions to know what all that water would do to our climate, and for how long. This is because the only way to measure water vapor in the entire stratosphere is via satellites. These only exist since 1979, and there hasn’t been an eruption similar to Hunga Tonga in that time.

Follow the vapor

Experts in stratospheric science around the world started examining satellite observations from the first day of the eruption. Some studies focused on the more traditional effects of volcanic eruptions, such as the amount of sulphate aerosols and their evolution after the eruption, some concentrated on the possible effects of the water vapour, and some included both.

But nobody really knew how the water vapor in the stratosphere would behave. How long will it remain in the stratosphere? Where will it go? And, most importantly, what does this mean for the climate while the water vapour is still there?

Those were exactly the questions we set off to answer.

We wanted to find out about the future, and unfortunately it is impossible to measure that. This is why we turned to climate models, which are specifically made to look into the future.

We did two simulations with the same climate model. In one, we assumed no volcano erupted, while in the other one we manually added the 60,000 Olympic swimming pools worth of water vapor to the stratosphere. Then, we compared the two simulations, knowing that any differences must be due to the added water vapor.


The ash plume from the Hunga Tonga eruption in an image taken by an astronaut on January 16 2022 from the International Space Station. NASA

What did we find out?

The large ozone hole from August to December 2023 was at least in part due to Hunga Tonga. Our simulations predicted that ozone hole almost two years in advance.

Notably, this was the only year we would expect any influence of the volcanic eruption on the ozone hole. By then, the water vapour had just enough time to reach the polar stratosphere over Antarctica, and during any later years there will not be enough water vapour left to enlarge the ozone hole.

As the ozone hole lasted until late December, with it came a positive phase of the Southern Annular Mode during the summer of 2024. For Australia this meant a higher chance of a wet summer, which was exactly opposite what most people expected with the declared El Niño. Again, our model predicted this two years ahead.

In terms of global mean temperatures, which are a measure of how much climate change we are experiencing, the impact of Hunga Tonga is very small, only about 0.015 degrees Celsius. (This was independently confirmed by another study.) This means that the incredibly high temperatures we have measured for about a year now cannot be attributed to the Hunga Tonga eruption.

Disruption for the rest of the decade

But there are some surprising, lasting impacts in some regions of the planet.

For the northern half of Australia, our model predicts colder and wetter than usual winters up to about 2029. For North America, it predicts warmer than usual winters, while for Scandinavia, it again predicts colder than usual winters.

The volcano seems to change the way some waves travel through the atmosphere. And atmospheric waves are responsible for highs and lows, which directly influence our weather.

It is important here to clarify that this is only one study, and one particular way of investigating what impact the Hunga Tonga eruption might have on our weather and climate. Like any other climate model, ours is not perfect.

We also didn’t include any other effects, such as the El Niño–La Niña cycle. But we hope that our study will stir scientific interest to try and understand what such a large amount of water vapour in the stratosphere might mean for our climate.

Whether it is to confirm or contradict our findings, that remains to be seen – we welcome either outcome.

Martin Jucker, Lecturer in Atmospheric Dynamics, UNSW Sydney

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

Strange manuscript of Camus' 'The Stranger' up for auction

Agence France-Presse
June 4, 2024

Albert Camus (AFP)

A handwritten manuscript of classic French novel "The Stranger" by Albert Camus goes up for auction on Wednesday -- a unique item since it appears to have been made after the book was published.

The 104-page draft is expected to reach between 500,000 and 800,000 euros at the Tajan auction house in Paris.

Manuscripts are normally written as the first draft before being edited and published, and Camus put the date of April 1940 on this one, suggesting it was finished some two years before "The Stranger", also known in English as "The Outsider", was published.

But a number of clues indicate this was a light-hearted fake, since another signed manuscript also exists.

This one is full of jokey sketches, remarks and subtle annotations, and an expert who studied it in later years said it had actually been put together in 1944 -- a view reportedly confirmed to him by Camus's widow.

With Paris under Nazi occupation at the time, it may have been a way of raising desperately-needed funds by creating a handwritten copy for a wealthy fan.

"Its history and precise dating are mysterious, as is the progress of this strange novel," the auction house says in its notes.

The identity of the first buyer is unknown. It was later sold at auction twice -- in 1958 and 1991.

"The Stranger" had an initial print run of 4,400 copies, but quickly became a bestseller and then a classic of French literature, selling millions of copies.

Considered a key text in the existentialist movement, it recounts the story of a French settler in Algeria who kills an unnamed Arab man for reasons that remain unclear.

BECAUSE FRANCE WAS AN OCCUPYING COLONIALIST POWER OVER AND IN ALGERIA

France's answer to Fox News, CNews, becomes top news channel

Agence France-Presse
June 3, 2024 

CNews overtook BFMTV as the number one station 

© Lionel BONAVENTURE / AFP/File


CNews, regularly accused of fostering far-right views, became France's number one news channel for the first time last month, according to figures published on Monday.

Often described as France's answer to Fox News due to its opinionated and divisive presenters, CNews reflects a rightwards shift in French politics, often airing views against immigration, Islamism and "woke" leftists.

It denies that it has any political bias.

"We are a mirror of society. Our progress has been constant and has accelerated for several months," CNews general director Serge Nedjar told AFP.

It took 2.8 percent of the audience share last month, ahead of the long-time leader BFMTV on 2.7 percent, according to data collated by Mediametrie.

The shift comes at a time when polls suggest the far-right is cruising to victory in this month's European elections in France.

But it has been a vital platform for far-right figures, such as presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, who has been convicted several times for racist hate speech, including for comments made on CNews talk shows.

The station insists that it sticks rigidly to rules that ensure each party gets an equal share of airtime ahead of elections.

Launched in 2017, it is part of a media group owned by conservative billionaire Vincent Bollore.

In a rare public appearance before lawmakers in March, he denied imposing any "ideology" on the stations, and said his stations' only interest was in "telling the truth".

But CNews and its sister station C8 continue to face regular sanctions from regulators.

Last month, it was fined 50,000 euros for comments by one of its journalists, who blamed anti-Semitism and prison-overcrowding on "Arab-Muslim immigration".

It was fined in February after one of its shows described abortion as "the leading cause of death in the world".

© 2024 AFP

U.S. health experts review MDMA as treatment for PTSD

Agence France-Presse
June 4, 2024 

Ecstasy Pills (Shutterstock)

A panel of U.S. health experts convened by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are meeting Tuesday to weigh the benefits and risks of using MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

PTSD, a debilitating mental health condition that develops after a person experiences or is threatened by traumatic events such as death, combat, or sexual assault, affects an estimated five percent of Americans in any given year.

But treatment options are so far limited to two antidepressants that require three months of dosing to take effect, and response rates to the medications have been found to be uneven.

California-based Lykos Therapeutics is basing their request for regulatory approval on two clinical studies, each of which enrolled around 100 people, to evaluate MDMA used together with other psychological interventions such as talk therapy, against a placebo with talk therapy.

These two studies, published in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine, indicated MDMA was indeed both safe and highly effective at treating PTSD.

But a briefing document put together by the FDA ahead of the meeting suggested its staff were not as convinced.

In particular, they were concerned that although the studies were nominally "double-blinded" -- meaning neither those being tested nor their health care workers knew who received the treatment versus the placebo -- most people were able to accurately guess what they received.

This "functional unblinding," they argued, introduces bias and uncertainty into study outcomes.

What's more, they criticized Lykos for not gathering sufficient side effect data, including whether participants experienced "euphoria" or "elated mood," which, the FDA argued, "would be informative for an assessment of abuse potential or characterization of anticipated effects of the drug."

Reports from recreational use suggest MDMA has harmful impacts on heart and liver health -- but the company did not gather enough data in these areas, the FDA said.

MDMA -- Methylenedioxymethamphetamine -- is a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act, and approving it for medical use would represent a major shift.

But even if the FDA advisers endorse MDMA, their vote is non-binding and the final decision on whether to approve the treatment rests with the agency.

COLORADO

'More in common with the Taliban': Outrage erupts over state GOP's anti-Pride vitriol

M.L. Nestel
June 4, 2024 

Gay Pride Flag (Shutterstock)

The Colorado Republican Party wants all Gay Pride rainbow flags to burn to ash, according to a new report.

In a mass email titled “God Hates Pride” the state GOP made a call to flames, and castigated LGBTQ community as Pride month began on June 1, according to the local NBC affiliate 9News.

“The month of June has arrived and, once again, the godless groomers in our society want to attack what is decent, holy, and righteous so they can ultimately harm our children," the letter reportedly reads.

The message was a nod to the slur made famous by the Westboro Baptist Church, 9News notes.

And the message was reportedly endorsed by the party’s chairman Dave Williams.

A post on X from the official Colorado Republican Party account reads “Burn all the #pride flags this June" and includes an orange animated flame gif.



It drew instant condemnation.

"God Hates Pride"! Really State GOP," Valdamar Archuleta, the president of the Colorado Log Cabin Republicans responded. "The morons running our state party make it EXTREMELY hard for some of us to accomplish our goals for Liberty. I'm really mad right now... I won't say any more. (for now“The morons running our state party made it extremely hard for some of us to accomplish our goals for Liberty."

ALSO READ: Ron Johnson finally admits Jan. 6 was violent — then blames it on 'outside agitators'

Archuleta told the NBC affiliate that he would refuse any endorsement of the Colorado Republican Party calling the party's email “just hateful” and “disgusting and offensive.”

In a response, Democratic State Rep. David Ortiz, who made state history as the first out bi legislator, scorned the state GOP for having “more in common with the Taliban than the founding fathers.”

Ortiz served as an Army helicopter pilot in Afghanistan and was partially paralyzed in a helicopter crash in 2012.

“LGBTQ folks served and serve in the military. We are cops, we are firefighters, we are your family members and neighbors,” Ortiz wrote on X. “We will outlast your bigotry and hate.”

Despite the fallout over the flag burning edict, Williams told the station it won't retract it.

“We make no apologies for opposing the woke Pride Month agenda as it ultimately harms children and undermines parents," he said.

Williams has been endorsed by Trump for Congress.

"Dave Williams has my Complete and Total Endorsement," Trump posted on Truth Social.

PAKISTAN

Measles resurgence

Editorial 

DAWN

Published June 4, 2024 


THE alarming rise in measles cases across Pakistan signals a burgeoning public health crisis that demands immediate intervention. Latest reports show the disease wreaking havoc in cities in Punjab. With around 3,400 cases since January this year, the situation in the province is dire. Several fatalities have already been reported, with some pending confirmation. This trend is echoed nationwide, including in Sindh and KP, though the more significant outbreaks have been reported from south Punjab. Measles, a highly contagious viral disease, poses severe risks to children, especially those who are malnourished or unvaccinated. Complications include pneumonia, encephalitis, severe diarrhoea, dehydration, and blindness. The recent spike in cases among infants younger than nine months is particularly of concern, as the standard vaccination schedule starts after this age.

So what has led to such a spike? A key driver is low vaccination rates, which the WHO has consistently warned the world about. The Covid pandemic disrupted routine immunisation services worldwide, leading to a significant drop in vaccination coverage. Misinformation and the global ‘anti-vax’ movement added fuel to the fire. The result is a backlog of children around the world who are at high risk. In Pakistan, malnutrition has exacerbated the severity of measles and its complications. To address this escalating emergency, the government must intensify vaccination campaigns. It is encouraging that during the upcoming anti-polio campaign, the government plans to simultaneously check for measles cases and administer measles shots to children in some areas. This must be extended to all cities. Alongside, public health education campaigns are crucial to raise awareness about the importance of the jab and early intervention. Improving access to healthcare services in underserved areas and addressing the nutritional needs of children is equally vital. Of particular importance is accountability among health officials to prevent negligence. The government must act swiftly.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2024

Stateless workers

Naeem Sadiq 

Published June 3, 2024

DAWN

OF the 79 miners who have died since Jan 1, 2024, in Pakistan’s deadly coal mines, not a single one was registered with the EOBI. They were all born as citizens of Pakistan. They were not refugees. They did not give up their citizenship. They did not give up on the state. But the state gave up on them. The state abandoned them, refused to recognise their existence, and reduced them to ‘stateless’, benefitless nonentities. By excluding them from the EOBI, the state gave them a future of poverty and dependency. This cruelty is orchestrated by a single government department: the Employees’ Old-age Benefits Institution (EOBI).

Pakistan has an informal workforce of around 80 million workers engaged in industrial, agricultural, domestic, and commercial activities. It is their sweat and labour that turn the wheels of industry and commerce. In return, 60 per cent of them are not even given the minimum legal wage. The monthly EOBI contribution is deposited for only 4.7m or 6pc workers. The state has no concern or interest in knowing about the remaining 94pc. Do they exist at all? What and where do they work? Who are their employers? How will they survive with zero post-retirement pensions? It is impossible to fathom why a state knowingly designs a dark and miserable old age for its workers.

Imagine if there was a law that prohibited pension for any Grade 22 government officer, unless there were at least five or more Grade 22 officers working in the same department. Bizarre as it may seem, this is the law we have for Pakistan’s workers. It permits all those employers who employ fewer than five employees (and there are millions of them) to not register their employees with the EOBI. No Pakistani leader has ever understood that every worker above the age of 18 years ought to be registered with the EOBI, regardless of the nature of the work, the number of employees or the type of employment (regular, temporary, contracted, daily wage or through a third-party contractor). Millions of daily wagers and third-party workers in government and statutory bodies are currently outside the ambit of the EOBI for no fault of their own. Even an unemployed or self-employed individual should be able to obtain EOBI registration by personally contributing the requisite amount.

The existing EOBI ought to be dissolved, replaced with professional management, completely digitised, and linked with Nadra. The bureaucratic and cumbersome procedure for enrolment of a new worker and payment of his/her monthly contribution ought to be simplified with a mobile phone app; it should require no human interaction, visiting offices or banks, filling forms or producing photocopies. The EOBI monthly contribution rate ought to be standardised across Pakistan to enable seamless continuity for workers changing jobs or locations.

The EOBI ought to be replaced with a professional management.

An alleged ‘inspection’ system at the institution is said to follow the 10pc rule. You register only 10pc employees, and we look the other way — in return for an amicable under-the-table ‘settlement’.

The EOBI ought to jettison all its inspectors and two-thirds of its existing 657 employees, and control all its functions using a handful of professionals and electronic databases. A publicly accessible online database should reflect each registered employee’s name, CNIC, phone number, employer’s name, the latest EOBI contribution and the total contribution made thus far. An effective database can monitor and ensure that every single worker in Pakistan is included in the EOBI scheme.

Every registered worker must receive an automatic SMS, by the 10th of each month to confirm the am­­ount contributed on his/her behalf. The system should automatically in­­v­oke progressively increasing penalties for employers delaying payme­n­­ts beyond the 10th of any month. On reaching the age of 60 years, workers should be given the choice to either opt for the regular monthly pension or to accept the lump sum amount accumulated during his/her entire years of contribution.

In both cases, the amount must be immediately deposited in the worker’s designated bank, instead of involving the worker in a bureaucratic runaround of visiting EOBI offices or providing fresh affidavits, photographs, or certificates.

Pakistan is the only country in the world that pays a pension of Rs1 million to superior judges and a pittance of Rs10,000 to its workers. This amounts to an obscene and immoral compensation ratio of 1:100. We ought to slash all government pensions above Rs200,000 to half and increase workers’ pension to 75pc of the applicable minimum legal wage. It is time for Pakistan to end its fixation on the rich, and instead, focus on the 80m abandoned stateless children awaiting recognition, minimum wage, the EOBI and a sliver of humanity.

The writer is an industrial engineer and a volunteer social activist.
naeemsadiq@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2024

Iran’s top diplomat confirms talks with US

AFP Published June 4, 2024

BEIRUT: Iran’s acting foreign minister Ali Bagheri said on Monday his government was engaged in negotiations with arch-foe the United States hosted by the Gulf sultanate of Oman.

Asked about the issue at a news conference during a visit to Beirut, Bagheri said “we have always continued out negotiations… and they have never stopped.” Washington and Tehran have not had diplomatic relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.

The British daily Financial Times reported in March that Bagheri was involved in indirect talks with the United States in Oman in early 2024, against the backdrop of heightened regional tensions over Gaza.

Bagheri arrived Monday in Lebanon, on his first foreign trip since assuming the interim role following the death of Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in a helicopter crash last month that also killed Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi. Bagheri said the choice of destination for his visit was “because Lebanon is the cradle of resistance” against Israel.

Bagheri, Iran’s former top nuclear negotiator, said discussions with Western powers about Tehran’s atomic activities were ongoing. Western governments fear Iran is seeking to develop a nuclear weapon — a claim the Islamic republic has always denied.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2024