This Economy Is Proving  Too Hard for Economists

Analysis by Jared Dillian | Bloomberg

August 19, 2022 

The latest buzzword among many economists and investors is “ noise.” It’s being used to refer to any piece of economic data that doesn’t fit the prevailing narrative, which is happening a lot these days. Don’t get me wrong — this economy is proving hard to understand. It is very strong in some respects and very weak in others. The official government data shows gross domestic product just shrank for two consecutive quarters, meeting the technical definition of a recession, but it doesn’t feel like a true recession.

No sooner had the Labor Department said earlier this month that economy added 528,000 jobs in July, more than double the forecast and exceeding every one of the more than 70 estimates in a Bloomberg survey, than economists dismissed the results as “noise.” They trotted out the word again when the government said on Aug. 10 that the consumer price index was unchanged in July from the month before, an outcome all but four of 63 economists predicted. They expected an increase. And just this week we heard a lot of economists respond with “noise” when the Commerce Department said this week that retail sales for July among a control group that is used to calculate GDP rose more than forecast.  

This is all very confusing to many, and I get it. But just because the data doesn’t fit Wall Street’s longstanding models that worked in the pre-pandemic era doesn’t mean that it’s ”noise.” It probably means the models are in dire need of updating.

Take the inflation data. The no change in the monthly CPI was surprising, but probably not an outlier. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does a pretty good job of gathering and analyzing data. If it is showing that inflation was unchanged, it does really mean inflation slowed. It also means we can still debate about why inflation slowed. My pet theory is that faster inflation was the result of the lagged effects of fiscal stimulus in response to the shutdowns in the early days of the pandemic, and now that the stimulus is moving farther away in the rear-view mirror, price gains will slow. The data is what it is, but it can still be subject to interpretation

The strong retail sales number might also be dismissed as “noise.” Retail sales excluding auto purchases rose 0.4% in July, versus a forecasted contraction of 0.1% in a Bloomberg survey. Sales among the control group rose 0.8%, well above the pre-pandemic monthly average of 0.3%. The latest results don’t exactly fit the narrative that the economy is in a recession. 

So, the options are to either dismiss data that doesn’t meet the numbers spit out by the models or apply some brainpower to figure out why the models seem to be getting critical parts of the economy so wrong lately. Maybe consumers aren’t as tapped out by inflation as we are led to believe. Maybe the massive amount of money still sitting in household savings accounts thanks to the unprecedented fiscal stimulus when combined with an unemployment rate that, at 3.5%, represents a 53-year low, means consumers are mostly undeterred by rising prices. 

This isn’t to say there is no volatility in economic data. There are occasional anomalies. Sometimes the seasonality calculations are off due to an extraordinary event, like an unexpected government shut down due to the debt ceiling being reached or a natural disaster. This is why many economists look at moving averages and data series over a period of time to get a truer picture of trends.  

Everything happing in the economy right now is happening for a reason – a reason that many economists and investors are struggling to understand. As I’ve written before, none of models used by economists are useful in predicting the aftermath of an economy that stops on a dime, jettisons some 17 million from the workforce over two weeks and contracts 31% only to rebound just as quickly on the back of free-money government programs that injected trillions of dollars directly into the pockets of consumers to go along with negative real interest rates and quantitative easing policies from the central bank. On top of that, global supply chains were massively disrupted, creating shortages of goods, which in turn led to higher prices for those that were available. 

It will take quite a few years before all of this is sorted out and we return to something resembling a normal business cycle. The broad economic slowdown we are experiencing is likely nothing more than a pullback from the artificially induced sharp recovery from the lockdowns. It may not fit the model of a conventional business cycle, but once you accept that this is not a normal business cycle and view the data through a different lens, then the unexpected begins to make sense and not something to be dismissed as “noise.”

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Jared Dillian is the editor and publisher of the Daily Dirtnap. An investment strategist at Mauldin Economics, he is author of “All the Evil of This World.” He may have a stake in the areas he writes about.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

 

Soldiers, Saints, and Shamans

• 

Book:

Soldiers, Saints, and Shamans: Indigenous Communities and the Revolutionary State in Mexico's Gran Nayar, 1910–1940
Nathaniel Morris
Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 2021, ISBN: 9780816546930; 392pp.; Price: £35.00

Reviewer:

Dr Mark Lawrence
University of Kent

Citation:

Dr Mark Lawrence, review of Soldiers, Saints, and Shamans, (review no. 2463)
DOI: 10.14296/RiH/2014/2463
Date accessed: 19 August, 2022

The period 1910-40 was tumultuous in Mexican history. The armed phase of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20) was followed by fragmented attempts by Revolutionary politicians to assert Federal control and modernisation in the face of military rebellion, resistance to social reform, two major religious revolts known as the Cristiada, and ongoing, albeit often unremarked, agency from Mexico’s indigenous populations. This latter aspect is the focus of research in Nathaniel Morris’s excellent new history.  The author's specific attention is on the Wixárika, Naayari, O'dam, and Mexicanero communities of the Gran Nayar region along with adjoining locations along the Sierra Madre Occidental highlands.

Nathaniel Morris’s work is a landmark study of ethnohistory and a highly original addition to our knowledge of Mexico’s revolutionary and counter-revolutionary era of 1910-1940. His focus is the Gran Nayar, a region centred on Nayarit, but also including parts of the states of Sinaloa, Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Durango, during the armed phase of the Mexican revolution and the Cristero wars. Soldiers, Saints and Shamans fills a void in the historiography. As Morris correctly points out, there has been very little historical analysis of indigenous agency in the Mexican Revolutionary period, and ‘the Gran Nayar remains entirely absent from most Mexicans’ mental map of the period’ (p. 11). Throughout the 19th century, any Indian initiative was written off as a ‘caste war’, and irreconcilable with White and mestizo nation-building.(1) 20th-century historians and anthropologists mostly assumed that Mexico’s indigenous populations were either passive recipients of Revolutionary nation-building schemes or defiant outsiders from the mestizo state. A landmark study of caudillos (political/military ‘strongmen’) in the Independence Wars represented Indians as ‘apolitical’.(2) Indigenous agency was usually explained as a defence of ‘old ways’, and the amorphous collection of rituals, everyday representations, and beliefs lumped together as a static rather than dynamic ‘costumbre’ (customs). Condescending, and even racist, interpretations died hard, as Nathaniel Morris’s separate study of the 19th-century Manuel Lozada revolt in a similar region has shown.(3) The outsized role played by indigenous communities in religious revolts, including the Cristiada, was explained as being motivated by religious devotion and an ingrained scepticism towards the Mexican state.(4) More recent scholarship has shifted the dial somewhat, demonstrating the considerable degree to which indigenous peoples collaborated with White/mestizo state-building all the same, often by turning against their defiant (‘bronco’) kin.(5) But Soldiers, Saints and Shamans should be considered a breakthrough.

Soldiers, Saints and Shamans draws on unused archives, conversations with veterans and their descendants, and on ethnographic research, to produce a remarkable analysis, all amidst the challenges posed in this region by the ongoing drugs war. Dr Morris has lived with host communities and sensitively interprets conflicting oral history testimonies, while maintaining the rigour of the historian. Readers will feel for themselves the intimacy of these sources, as well as the natural confusion made between elderly eyewitnesses and descendants regarding particular chronologies, risings, and battles. The author sanely makes a disclaimer as to his own fallibility. But the result is as objective as can be reasonably hoped. Morris avoids the condescending and romanticised biases of earlier anthropologists. The millenarianism which cloaked most comments on pre-Columbine populations’ religious and political practices is here explained. Morris shows an excellent grasp of indigenous metaphysics. Indian responses to the Revolution and the Cristiada in the Gran Nayar were a sophisticated expression of local power politics. Revolutionary reforms, such as the government-appointment of headmen of O’dam communities, threatened a meta-apocalypse, according to the O’dam worldview. These reforms destroyed the spatial rather than linear perception of time, and would result in a catastrophic failure of the rains. But Morris shows how Indian communities were not solely metaphysical in their calculations. They also reacted as logically as mestizos to the pendulum swings of armies and the threats and opportunities these posed.

Thus, Morris explains how fiercely independent indigenous communities used external initiatives to consolidate their own interests. The O’dam of Durango were amongst the least Catholic people in Mexico, if the presence of priests is anything to go by. Yet they were amongst the most enthusiastic Cristeros of the 1920 and 30s. Federal threats to ancestral lands and costumbre made the anti-Federal Cristero revolt a convenient vehicle for defending local interests. Here, Jean Meyer’s model of popular, rather than elite, agency in the Cristero rebellion religious militancy in the Cristiada is revised further. Religion, or at least Catholicism, comes as a close second, if that, in motivations. Morris’s work develops the findings of other regional studies in Mexican history which, over the past 30 years, have stressed peripheral and horizontal agency in matters of reform in land, religion, and education. Some local elites backed the Federal government, using paramilitary militias (defensas) as a vehicle for their ambition, whereas others backed revolts, especially the Cristiada, relying on forced conscription rather than the faithful voluntarism of legend. The fact that this indigenous region had long remained peripheral to Liberal and Revolutionary nation-building projects meant that both defensas and Cristeros were empowered in the national political crises of 1926-29, and the 1930s. 

Morris also shows how indigenous communities clung to the very costumbre which had historically defined them. The indigenous communities ‘traditionalised’ the Revolution, in the same way that post-Columbine Indians incorporated and parodied Catholic rituals into their original religious fiestas (p. 266). After three decades of intra- and inter-communal violence, and the encroachments of the mestizo state, the 1940s found the Gran Nayar in a state of despondent cynicism. Indigenous attitudes towards any authority figures connected with external revolution and counter-revolution, whether priests, teachers, government officials, or caciques, were poisoned for generations.

There are definitely a few jagged edges and discontinuities in the writing. However, this is never a boring read. Dr Morris has produced a vital text for understanding the Mexican Revolution and its aftermath from the perspective of indigenous populations. Dr Morris should be congratulated on bringing clarity and interest to this neglected aspect of history, and the work should be strongly recommended to any serious scholar of modern Mexico.

Notes

1. In Mexico, the term mestizo (lit. "mixed") is used to refer to an identity of those of mixed European (mainly Spanish) and indigenous Mexican descent.Back to (1)
2. John Lynch, Caudillos in Spanish America, 1800-1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 134.Back to (2)
3. Nathaniel Morris, Manuel Lozada, la ‘leyenda negra’, y el nacimiento del agrarismo en la conformación de Nayarit (Tepic: Consejo Estatal para la Cultura y las Artes de Nayarit, 2017).Back to (3)
4. E.g. Edwin Lieuwen, Mexican Militarism, the Political Rise and Fall of the Revolutionary Army, 1910-1940 (New York: Praeger, 1981), p. 84.
   Back to (4)
5. Julia O’Hara, ‘The Slayer of Victorio Bears his Honors Quietly’, in Nicola Foote and René D. Harder Horst (eds.), Military Struggle and Identity Formation in Latin America: Race, Nation and Community During the Liberal Period (University of Florida Press, 2010), pp. 224-242.Back to (5)

Bibliography
Lieuwen, Edwin, Mexican Militarism, the Political Rise and Fall of the Revolutionary Army, 1910-1940 (New York: Praeger, 1981)
Lynch, John, Caudillos in Spanish America, 1800-1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991)
Morris, Nathaniel, Manuel Lozada, la ‘leyenda negra’, y el nacimiento del agrarismo en la conformación de Nayarit (Tepic: Consejo Estatal para la Cultura y las Artes de Nayarit, 2017).
O’Hara, Julia, ‘The Slayer of Victorio Bears his Honors Quietly’, in Nicola Foote and René D. Harder Horst (eds.), Military Struggle and Identity Formation in Latin America: Race, Nation and Community During the Liberal Period (University of Florida Press, 2010), pp. 224-242.

Iran Calls on Western Gov'ts to Stop Ignoring Israeli Crimes Against Palestinians


TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran blasted the international community for keeping mum on Israeli aggressions against Palestinian people, and urged the Western countries to support the Palestinian nation’s rights instead of denying realities about the Zionist regime’s crimes.

“In line with what has been stipulated in many official documents… and countless reports by human rights institutions, the Zionist regime is an apartheid regime, which is culpable for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kana’ani wrote Twitter on Thursday.

He advised the Western governments to stop denying “objective facts” regarding the Israeli regime’s apartheid character and instead start backing the Palestinian nation’s human rights.

Numerous human rights organizations have condemned the Israeli regime for its practicing apartheid by systematically oppressing the Palestinians via military occupation and racist laws.

Leading human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have equated Israeli policies against Palestinians to apartheid.

Iran has repeatedly stressed the international community should force Israel to account for human rights violations and crimes against Palestinians. Tehran stated that Washington-supported barbarity will not change the inevitable fate of the Tel Aviv regime.

Israel unleashed a wave of air raids on the Gaza Strip during the last week. Forty-nine Palestinians, including 17 children and two Islamic Jihad commanders, were martyred in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of Palestinians were also wounded.

United Nations Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet has sounded the alarm about the high number of Palestinians, including children, killed and injured by Israel in 2022.

Almost 40 Palestinian children have been killed so far this year in the occupied territories and in many incidents, Israeli forces appear to use lethal force in a manner that violates international human rights law, Bachelet said.

The toll of civilian casualties in the Israeli attack on Gaza “was heavy”, the UN rights chief added.

Iran describes Israel as the root cause of instability in the region, but says the regime's US-supported barbarity will not change the inevitable fate of the Tel Aviv regime.

Iranian President Seyed Ebrahim Rayeesi strongly condemned the new crime committed by Tel Aviv in the Gaza Strip, and noted the Israeli regime is on a fast-track towards decline because of the resistance of the Palestinian people in the besieged enclave.

"Through its crime last night, the Zionist regime once more showed its occupationist and aggressive nature to the world," President Rayeesi stated on Saturday.

He praised the Palestinians for standing firm in the face of Israeli atrocities, and added, "The resistance of the people of Gaza will speed up the decline of this child-killing regime."

US says 'concerned' by Israeli raids on Palestinian rights groups

Issued on: 19/08/2022 -

Washington said Thursday it was "concerned" by the Israeli government's forced closure of several Palestinian NGOs operating in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military announced earlier in the day that it had conducted overnight raids of seven organisations in Ramallah, the West Bank city where the Palestinian Authority's headquarters are located.

Six of the Palestinian organisations were labeled last October as terrorist organisations by Israel for their alleged links to the leftist militant group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), though Israeli officials have not publicly shared any evidence of the links.

The NGOs have all denied any links to the PFLP, which many western nations have designated a terrorist group.

"We are concerned about the Israeli security forces' closure of the six offices of the Palestinian NGOs in and around Ramallah today," said US State Department spokesman Ned Price at a press briefing.

"We have not changed our position or approach to these organisations," said Price, though he noted that Washington does not fund any of them.

"We have seen nothing in recent months to change (our position)" he added.

US officials have reached out to their Israeli counterparts "at the senior level" to obtain additional information, which Israel has promised to provide, according to Price.

The seventh organisation raided by Israel on Thursday, the Union of Health Work Committees, was banned by Israel from working in the West Bank in 2020.

(AFP)

‘Israel only knows one language’: Gideon Levy on why Israel bombed Gaza
Mohamed Hashem   19 August 2022 

‘Israel uses only one language and is refusing to try an alternative, which is not violence.’

Israeli journalist Gideon Levy speaks to MEE on the latest Israeli assault on Gaza, which killed at least 49 Palestinians, including 17 children

Pegasus: English court rules Saudi dissident's case against kingdom can move forward

Ruling for Ghanem al-Masarir, who was allegedly targeted by Saudi Arabia with spyware and assaulted, could set precedent for legal action taken by other UK-based dissidents

Almasarir outside the Saudi Arabian embassy in London in October 2018, 

calling for justice for Jamal Khashoggi (AFP)

By Dania Akkad
Published date: 19 August 2022

A Saudi Arabian dissident who alleges that Riyadh installed spyware on his phones and ordered an assault on him can proceed with his lawsuit against the kingdom, England's high court ruled on Friday.

The judgement in Ghanem Almasarir's case is the first ever ruling in a UK court involving spyware and a foreign country, and could set precedent for other Britain-based dissidents alleged to have been the targets of state-sponsored surveillance on British soil.

Almasarir said it was a "huge relief" that the judgement had gone in his favour and said the alleged targeting with spyware and assault had had "a profound effect" on his life.

"I no longer feel safe and I am constantly looking over my shoulder. I no longer feel able to speak up for the oppressed Saudi people because I fear that any contact with people inside the kingdom could put them in danger," he said.

"I look forward to presenting my full case to the court in the hope that I can finally hold the kingdom to account for the suffering I believe they have caused me.”

Almasarir used his YouTube channel, which had more than 300 million views at the height of its popularity in 2018, to make fun of the Saudi royal family, particularly Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

'I no longer feel safe and I am constantly looking over my shoulder. I no longer feel able to speak up for the oppressed Saudi people'

- Ghanem Almasarir

The lawsuit accuses the Saudi government of infecting Almasarir’s phone in June 2018 with Pegasus, military-grade spyware that it acquired from Israeli company NSO Group.

His phone was examined by experts at University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, who confirmed that he had been sent malicious texts associated with Pegasus and concluded “with a high degree of confidence” that Saudi Arabia was responsible, Almasarir’s lawyers have said.

Once installed, it would have allowed them to access his microphone and camera to hear and record what he was doing, as well as examine location data, all stored messages and images and the phone's browser history.

The lawsuit also alleges that the Saudi government directed an attack against Almasarir across the street from Harrods in London on 31 August 2018, an incident that was caught on film and appeared on social media accounts linked to the authorities in Riyadh.

He is bringing a claim for personal injuries resulting from both alleged attacks. States are normally shielded from most litigation in the UK, thanks to the State Immunity Act of 1978, enacted before spyware existed.

But the judgement handed down on Friday ruled that Almasarir’s case is an exception.

The ruling could open doors other UK-based dissidents and civil society leaders trying to bring legal action in Britain over claims they were targeted with spyware by Gulf countries in recent years.

They include Saeed Shehabi and Moosa Mohammed, two prominent Bahraini activists living in London, who are trying to sue Bahrain over allegations that the kingdom infected their personal computers with FinSpy surveillance software.

Three others - Saudi human rights defender Yahya Assiri, Anas Altikriti, head of the Cordoba Foundation, and Mohammed Kozbar, chairman of Finsbury Park Mosque - have also taken legal action in the UK over spyware allegations.

In April, their lawyers notified NSO Group, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that they plan to sue them in the high court over allegations that the two states infiltrated their phones with the Israeli firm's spyware.

SYRIA

Al-Bab massacre | Over 50 civilian casualties in (ASSAD) regime bombardment on market and residential neighbourhoods

On Aug 19, 2022

Aleppo province: SOHR activists have confirmed the increase of the number of casualties due to the massacre committed by regime forces which shelled an outdoors market and residential neighbourhoods in Al-Bab city in Aleppo countryside with artillery to over 50 civilians. Until now, SOHR activists have documented the death of 14 civilians, including five children, and the injury of 38 others, including women, children and elderly people.

It is worth noting that this is the most horrific massacre of those committed by regime forces in months.

Observatory sources have just reported a spike in the number of civilians who were killed and wounded in regime artillery fire on an outdoors market and residential neighbourhoods in Al-Bab city in Aleppo countryside, where the death of nine civilians, including children, was confirmed. In addition, 30 other civilians sustained various injuries and taken to hospitals in Al-Bab city.

SOHR sources confirmed that the artillery shells were fired from regime positions in the northern countryside of Aleppo as a response to the killing of regime soldiers in airstrikes by Turkish fighter jets on positions in Ain Al-Arab countryside a few days ago

.

Death toll update | Nearly ten people killed and over 30 others injured in regime artillery attack on Al-Bab city

On Aug 19, 2022

Aleppo province: SOHR activists have documented a spike in the number of civilians who were killed and wounded in regime artillery fire on an outdoors market and residential neighbourhoods in Al-Bab city in Aleppo countryside, where the death of nine civilians, including children, is confirmed. In addition, 30 other civilians have sustained various injuries and now receiving medical treatment in hospitals in Al-Bab city, which may raise the death toll further.

SOHR activists had confirmed that the number fatalities in today’s artillery attack on an outdoors market and residential neighbourhoods in Al-Bab city, which is controlled by Turkish forces and their proxy faction, jumped to seven civilians, including children, as well as the injury of 23 others.

SOHR sources also confirmed that the artillery shells were fired from regime positions in the northern countryside of Aleppo as a response to the killing of regime soldiers in airstrikes by Turkish fighter jets on positions in Ain Al-Arab countryside a few days ago.

How a British union leader secretly lobbied for Israel against Lowkey


Despite a history of trade union solidarity with Palestine, rapper Lowkey was de-platformed by the Trade Union Congress after a secret letter from the head of GMB Union, a move that Sohaib Benessa writes betrays the foundations of union organising.


Lowkey addresses the crowd as thousands of people attend a protest and block Whitehall to demonstrate against the Israeli bombing of Gaza and repression of Palestinian people in Jerusalem and the West Bank on May 11, 2021 in London, England. [Getty]

Sohaib Benessa
16 Aug, 2022
Perspectives

Held every year since the 1930’s, the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival celebrates the six Dorset labourers who formed the first trade union in the United Kingdom in 1834. The festival commemorates their legacy in establishing union movements.

In a shocking move this year, the Trade Union Congress decided to dedicate the Sycamore tree that hosted their secret meetings to the Queen, the same power that deported the Tolpuddle martyrs to a British penal colony in Australia, for her platinum jubilee.

Nigel Costley, the South West regional secretary for the Trade Union Congress, justified the move stating that, “The monarchy played a very different role in the 1800s and this dedication will raise awareness of how far we have come.”

"Lowkey has established his voice as solidly anti-racist and strongly opposed to militarism. The GMB, on the other hand, is a well-documented supporter of the arms trade"

Another strange subtext to this year’s Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival was the decision to disinvite British-Iraqi hip hop artist Lowkey from performing. Lowkey’s de-platforming occurred following a secret lobbying campaign by General Secretary of the GMB Union, Gary Smith, who sent a letter to Costley smearing Lowkey and leading to the rapper being disinvited.

Incidentally, the letter sent by Smith wrongly refers to Lowkey as Raheem, when in fact, his name is Kareem. One wonders why Smith would have such trouble with Arabic names. In the letter, he also falsely claims that Lowkey has "promoted conspiracy theories that allege an Israeli state plot to promote conflict between Ukraine and Russia” with no offer of evidence for this assertion.

Smith then proceeds to declare that the views (which he falsely attributes to Lowkey) "have nothing in common with the proud history of industrial struggle that we commemorate at Tolpuddle.”

Lowkey has established his voice as solidly anti-racist and strongly opposed to militarism. The GMB, on the other hand, is a well-documented supporter of the arms trade and has worked closely with GMB-funded Labour MP Ruth Smeeth to push this agenda in parliament.

Ruth Smeeth was designated as a “strictly protect” informant for the US Embassy in cables revealed by Wikileaks. She was also the director of public affairs and campaigns at Britain’s largest Israel lobby group BICOM, which has a campaign currently pushing to remove Lowkey’s music from Spotify through its ‘We Believe In Israel’ project.

However, aside from these more structural aspects, it is important to examine the record of Gary Smith himself and identify the likely root of these allegations.

There is clear evidence that Gary Smith has a history of weaponising anti-Semitism smears against political opponents; as GMB leader in Scotland he was a key participant in the campaign against Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard. He also led a campaign against Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on the same issue.

Smith has also been publicly promoted by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), a group entwined with the main settlement-building organisation in Palestine, known as the Jewish National Fund (JNF). This wouldn’t be the first time the CAA has got it wrong either. In 2017, the CAA had to remove a false claim about Lowkey from their website, after misquoting his Fire in the Booth performance on BBC Radio 1 in a failed attempt to de-platform him.

RELATED

An attack on Lowkey is an attack on allies of Palestine

Perspectives

Shareefa Energy

The group also published a dossier to prompt an investigation into anti-Semitism in the NUS, to prevent the new pro-Palestinian president-elect from taking her position. The dossier features Lowkey heavily. Considering these circumstances, it seems likely that the CAA is the source of Gary Smith's false allegations against Lowkey, contained in this secret lobbying letter.

The Chief Executive of the CAA is Gideon Falter, who simultaneously serves as the Vice Chair of the JNF UK. Initially, the director of communications for the CAA was Jonathan Sacerdoti who at the same time worked as director of the Zionist Federation. The CAA is also funded by Natan, an organisation which is chaired by Tony Felzen, a key supporter of Friends of the IDF.

The JNF UK is a key land grabbing and settlement building organisation in occupied Palestine and has stated that it collaborates on projects with “elite IDF units.” It has deep relationships with several Israeli organisations which provide direct passage into the Israeli army.

In 2005, JNF UK was investigated by the UK Charity Commission. The Charity Commission reported that "It is not open for the charity to support the State of Israel, since this does not itself denote a charitable purpose." The Charity Commission report continued to say that, "They should try to ensure that they refrain from indicating moral/political support for the state of Israel, rather explain the focus of their charitable activities.”

"For the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival to be used to de-platform pro-Palestinian artists, possibly based on a dodgy dossier provided by an organisation complicit in the settler colonial occupation of Palestine, is a travesty against its very foundations"

What’s more, JNF UK Honorary Treasurer Gary Mond was exposed to having made Islamophobic comments online. Earlier this year, JNF UK chair and former Israeli intelligence officer Samuel Hayek was also revealed to have made Islamophobic remarks, which led to the UK Charity Commission opening an investigation into the organisation on January 13th.

For the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival to be used to de-platform pro-Palestinian artists, possibly based on a dodgy dossier provided by an organisation complicit in the settler colonial occupation of Palestine, is a travesty against its very foundations.

There is a long tradition of solidarity with Palestine among British trade union movements, and the Trade Union Congress must not allow Israeli lobbyists to erode this history.

Sohaib Benessa is a British-born Moroccan writer based in London. His work focuses on social justice for marginalised groups within and without the UK, with specific attention to Africa and the Middle East.

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.

UK
NHS leaders warn energy costs could create public health crisis


The NHS Confederation has written to the chancellor to warn of catastrophic results if the government doesn’t help people with energy costs.

JOANNA ROBERTSON

THE BIG ISSUE
19 Aug 2022

Rising energy costs could place a greater strain on the NHS as households cut back on heating and food. 

Image: Li Lin/Unsplash


NHS leaders have warned of a “humanitarian crisis” as the fallout from rising energy costs could impact people’s health.

In a letter to the chancellor, the NHS Confederation outlined concerns that unaffordable household energy bills could lead to a public health emergency, which would increase health inequalities and place a high demand on NHS services.

“The country is facing a humanitarian crisis,”said Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents organisations across the UK with more than 1.5 million healthcare staff. “Many people could face the awful choice between skipping meals to heat their homes and having to live in cold, damp and very unpleasant conditions.

“This in turn could lead to outbreaks of illness and sickness around the country and widen health inequalities, worsen children’s life chances and leave an indelible scar on local communities.”

Soaring energy costs have added to a cost of living crisis which is only set to increase in the coming months. Real-terms inflation is predicted to reach nearly 18 per cent for those on the lowest incomes this autumn and energy bills could exceed universal credit payments.

Many of the most vulnerable are already cutting back on essential costs, with disability charity Sense reporting that a third of disabled people skip meals to save money.

A government spokesperson said “we have taken action to help households with £37 billion worth of support, which includes specific support to help people through the difficult winter ahead”. But the rise in household energy costs is expected to outpace government support promised so far when prices rise in October and again in January.

The letter warned of a dramatic upsurge in respiratory conditions, undernutrition, and hospital admissions in children, as well as an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke and falls for older people living in cold conditions.

“These outbreaks will strike just as the NHS is likely to experience the most difficult winter on record,” he continued, as the high demand on health services will coincide with predicted high levels of flu, norovirus and potentially further Covid outbreaks. Rising energy costs could also have a major impact on mental health, wellbeing and social care services.

“Not being able to afford a warm home and healthy food causes untold stress and anxiety,” said Katie Schmuecker, principal policy advisor at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The letter calls for the Westminster government to “set out a more targeted and detailed support package for those households who need it most in advance of the decision on the new energy price cap next week.”

“With bills expected to go up by 82 per cent, we believe the government’s current policy of providing £400 (paid in monthly installments) is not going to be nearly sufficient, even alongside the one-off payments for recipients of universal credit, disability benefits and the winter fuel allowance.

“Failure to go beyond this risks a public health emergency and this must be avoided at all costs.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the two candidates to replace him in September, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and former Chancellor Rishi Sunak, have all so far refused to detail how they would address the problem.

Earlier this summer, The Big Issue teamed up with former prime minister Gordon Brown to call on the government to take urgent action to prevent a “poverty time bomb” going off in October.

Writing in The Big Issue, Brown said: “With funds for charity starting to dry up, and food banks under pressure, only one group of people can make the difference. Johnson, Truss and Sunak must take time off from holidays and hustings and lead Britain, its regions and nations, away from an autumn and winter of misery.”

Wes Streeting, shadow health and social care secretary, said: “Families are really worried about how they are going to afford soaring energy bills this winter. Many will be plunged into poverty by this cost of living crisis and be forced to make choices between eating and heating.

“NHS leaders are absolutely right to raise concerns about the impact on health. The vaccines minister has admitted that elderly people unable to heat their homes this winter will be at greater risk of flu and other illnesses.

“Labour would freeze energy bills this winter, saving households £1,000. We will pay for it with a windfall tax on the excess profits of oil and gas companies, who are making more money than they know what to do with.”

A government spokesperson said: “We know that rising prices are affecting how far people’s incomes go, which is why we have taken action to help households with £37 billion worth of support, which includes specific support to help people through the difficult winter ahead.

“Eight million of the most vulnerable households will see £1,200 extra support, provided in instalments across the year, and everyone will receive £400 over the winter to help with energy bills. That’s on top of action earlier this year including a record fuel duty cut and a National Insurance cut worth up to £330 a year for the typical employee.

“We are also working closely with the NHS at pace to ensure we are ready for the pressures ahead by increasing capacity, boosting NHS 111 and 999 support, tackling delayed discharge and using new innovations such as virtual wards.”

PATRIARCHY; FEMICIDE, MYSOGYNY 

Papua New Guinea fails to end ‘evil’ of sorcery-related violence

Brutal torture and assault of women accused of witchcraft go unpunished while initiatives to end crime make little progress.

Papua New Guinea continues to see cases of women accused of sorcery

 and subjected to brutal torture 

[Courtesy of Dickson Tanda]

By Ian Neubauer
Published On 16 Aug 2022

Reports of machete-wielding men slashing innocent bystanders, arson attacks, sexual violence against girls, and the displacement of thousands of people during last month’s election in Papua New Guinea have drawn international condemnation.

But an even more insidious form of violence continues to plague the country: sorcery-accusation-related violence (SARV), the public torture and murder of women accused of witchcraft.

The most recent high-profile case followed the unexplained death, most probably from a heart attack or stroke, of trucking magnate Jacob Luke while bushwalking in Enga, a rugged, poorly-developed province in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, whose body was discovered by telecommunication workers on July 21.

The following morning, members of Luke’s tribe at Lakolam village in Enga Province singled out nine women, including two in their sixties and one who was pregnant, and accused them of ‘kaikai lewa’ – secretly removing the victim’s heart and eating it to gain their virility.

After one of the women admitted to the allegation because she was so scared, the group was splashed with petrol and burned.

Five of the women were then singled out for torture which consisted of being tied naked between two poles and assaulted vaginally with hot irons while being watched by a mostly male crowd that also included some children and members of the victims’ families.

When news of the torture spread through the province, six police officers and a layman representative of the Catholic Church travelled to Lakolam village to rescue the women. But after a tense standoff involving hundreds of angry armed villagers convinced beyond doubt of the women’s guilt, police backed off.

A second attempt the following day also failed, but police later managed to rescue five of the women. The others had already died.

“They were tortured from Friday morning until midnight and lost a lot of body tissue and blood, so only five of them survived. They were giving off a bad smell from their wounds when we met them,” Dickson Tanda, the Catholic Church’s SARV coordinator in Enga, told Al Jazeera.

Dickson, who has helped rescue more than 600 women and children accused of sorcery since 2015, says witch-hunting in the province is becoming more barbaric and more frequent. “That rescue was last weekend,” he said on August 2. “This weekend just past we rescued another woman accused of sorcery. They tortured her, cut her with a machete all over her body and burned her skin off.”

Horrifying trends

Research from the Australian National University (ANU) published in 2020 found the attention on witchcraft and the torture and killing of women alleged to be involved in sorcery was “not only warranted but also urgent considering the apparent increase in number and the brutality with which the witch hunters operate”.

In a paper published a year earlier, the same authors found it was “very clear it is entering new geographical areas” like Enga, where they had found no records of such attacks taking place before 2010

.

After torturing those accused of sorcery, the perpetrators burn down the homes and evict them from the village [Courtesy of Dickson Tanda]

Enga Province police chief George Kakas agrees.

“In the past, the violence here was culturally oriented. We fought over land and property, pigs and women” he told Al Jazeera. “But now it is changing in the modern era. We see trends like robberies, rape and accusations of sorcery because the youths are confused.”

Another clear pattern that has emerged is the impunity enjoyed by those who carry out SARV attacks on women.

An ANU study published in 2017 found just 91 out of 15,000 perpetrators had been imprisoned for their crimes.

A follow-up study published 12 months later found that in 2018 some 121 individuals were given harsh sentences for SARV violence in relation to six cases of wilful murder.

In all those cases, the victims were men.

The researchers concluded misogyny was a factor not just in SARV itself but in the response to the crimes.

“Notably the gender trend in these judgements we have observed earlier continues, in that all the victims of these cases were men, suggesting that cases involving male victims are more likely to proceed,” the authors concluded.

Kakas says the problem of impunity begins with police, who are poorly resourced and educated, but also because few witnesses are willing to take the risk of helping law enforcement when there is no form of witness protection in Papua New Guinea.

“In the most recent case, no arrests have been made. We went into the village looking for suspects, but they had decamped. We asked the leaders of the village to surrender them but as several of them are also implicated in the atrocities committed, they did not cooperate. And we have no evidence because not a single person in the village is willing to be an eyewitness to the torture and murders as they fear for their own lives,” Kakas said.

“Another problem is many policemen don’t take these events too seriously. I remember one case where I sent two officers to arrest some people involved in torture and instead they started interrogating the victims, pressuring them to confess they were sorcerers. I had them disciplined but they got off the charges,” he said.


Kakas says he can recall only one case in the past eight years where someone accused of a sorcery-related attack was successfully prosecuted and sentenced in his jurisdiction.
‘Just evil’

Various initiatives have been introduced to stamp out the violence, but none has been successful.

A victim of SARV is treated for their wounds [Courtesy of Dickson Tanda]

In 2015, the government announced the Sorcery National Action Plan (SNAP), a holistic initiative focusing on counselling, awareness, health advocacy, protection and research, but which had no solid targets.

Then there was Inap Nau! (Enough Now!), a 2018 campaign by Oxfam that looked at the problem from a gender-based perspective. Some 70 percent of women in Papua New Guinea experience rape or assault in their lifetime.

The Prime Minister’s Office in Papua New Guinea did not respond to Al Jazeera’s enquiries about the apparent failure of SNAP, while Oxfam PNG said it did not have time to respond to questions about Inap Nau! at “short notice”.

Kakas, who set up an anti-sorcery unit in 2016 within the police force to carry out awareness programmes and arrest offenders, says he knows why the initiatives did not work.

“Whenever there is a big case like this one there is a public outcry and some money is put into tackling the problem,” he said. “But when the hype fades, the funding disappears.”


A Catholic priest with the missionary Society of the Divine Word and a Professor of Social Research at Divine Word University in Papua New Guinea, Philip Gibbs, corroborates the claim.

“The government was supposed to fund the Sorcery National Action Plan, but that never happened,” Gibbs was reported as saying by The National newspaper in the capital Port Moresby last week.

Anton Lutz, an activist in sorcery-related crimes who has rescued several women and children from torture, accuses church groups of seeding the violence.

About 96 percent of people in Papua New Guinea identify as Christians, according to government statistics, while many combine their Christian faith with traditional Indigenous beliefs like animism and sorcery.

“The Catholic Church is one of the few actively fighting it. They have strong leaders who have excommunicated individuals and entire congregations that have aided and abetted torture, and they run some safe houses for survivors,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Other church denominations are neutral while others are complicit with preachers who actually advocate the violence. Many Christians are told that demons are real and that it is therefore plausible that there are evil people in the community who do Satan’s bidding. I think it goes back to their theology, where they believe in incarnate spiritual evil, which makes it hard to take a stance against witch-hunting because they could be accused of defending witches.”

Tanda, who in addition to rescuing women runs a privately-funded safe house for victims, is beyond trying to figure out the causes of sorcery-accusation-related violence or why it continues to be tolerated in Papua New Guinea.

“I don’t know. [The perpetrators] are just evil,” he said.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA